Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About msvreadsbooks

CBR13 participant

I love books, and after completing graduate school, I want an excuse to think deeply about them again. Proud granddaughter of multiple cancer survivors and would love to read and write for a cause.

msvreadsbooks's Reviews:

A 300 year saga that goes surprisingly quickly

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

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Addie LaRue was born in a small town in France. Over 300 years ago. It’s 2014, and swhe now lives in New York and survives by lying, stealing, pilfering, and taking advantage of her unusual gift (or curse), she is forgettable. Not as in plain or nondescript. Rather, once she leaves someone’s sight, they forget her and meet her all over again. This is mildly inconvenient in shops and movies theaters, but it is tragic with lovers and friends. Imagine having a perfect day with […]

Mary Roach’s Stiff: Macabre, fascinating, and funny

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

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Reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was a real experience. I’ve been wanting to read this book ever since I heard someone on NPR talking about it years ago, and I finally got around to it. This is one of those books that fascinated me while it repulsed me, and it made me feel like I was learning a lot while also challenging my preconceived notions about death and body donation. I especially appreciate when Roach tells anecdotes about her sense of humor not quite […]

The Midnight Library: Surprisingly uplifting

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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The Midnight Library follows a woman name Nora Seed who has a pretty sad life: dead end job, bad apartment, dead cat, no friends, dead mom. So she decides to take her own life by overdosing. After laying down to die, she finds herself in this kind of interstitial space of a weirdly magical library with infinite books of all the infinite lives she could have lived. The librarian is a woman from her past, Mrs. Elm, who helped her through her father’s death. Mrs. […]

Reacquainting myself with Armand Gamache – #16

All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny

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This is the 16th outing with Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, and we meet him and his family in Paris, instead of their adopted hometown of Three Pines, Québec. All of his children, children-in-law, and grandchildren now live in Paris. Armand and Rein-Marie are enjoying their time together in the city where they were engaged, and that includes spending a lot of time with Armand’s billionaire godfather, Stephen Horowitz. After dinner one night, Stephen is injured in a hit-and-run, and in trying to solve that crime, […]

What to do when your life’s philosophy fails you?

The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher R. Beha

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This was a terrific book! It follows 7 people who are all kind of loosely connected through less than a year in New York. Each of the characters is so interesting, and they all make decisions in a very particular way. It seems like they make decisions based on their own internal logic which they think is kind of flawless, and then they’re all coming to terms with the fact that their belief systems are flawed and their heroes aren’t who they though they were. […]

Delightfully unsettling, Lovecraftian adventure

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

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What a journey this book was… This year, I’m trying to branch out and read in different genres and modes, and this book is definitely something that I wouldn’t have picked up before.  The Hollow Places follows Kara (sometimes called Carrot) who moves in with her uncle to help him run his Museum of Wonders after her divorce. It’s a convenient arrangement for each of them as Kara avoids moving in with her mother – whom she loves, but wouldn’t love living with – and […]



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