Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About RaRaGabor

CBR14 Participant

Public librarian reading in Western NY.

RaRaGabor's Reviews:

Oh my god. If they say “movie in my mind” one more time, I’m gonna lose it!

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

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Uuuuugggggghhhhhh. I have really got to take a break from thrillers for a while. This book sat on my TBR for about a year before I finally checked the audio version out from the library. The premise seems strong: Charlie, our heroine, needs to get away. Her college roommate and best friend, Maddie, was murdered, and Charlie is not doing well. This being the early 90s, Charlie finds a ride on her college ride board from Josh, though right away there seems to be something […]

What will you do with the time you have left?

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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So….I downloaded this audiobook on Libby, thinking that it was a different TJ Klune. I thought I was borrowing The House in the Cerulean Sea. So I was Extremely Confused to be listening to a story about a real a-hole of a lawyer who dies suddenly but ends up sticking around as a ghost. This is no one’s fault but my own, of course, though it may explain why it took me a while to warm up to this story. Wallace Price is the a-hole […]

“This could be the most mentally ill family in America.”

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

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This was the non-fiction pick for my book club, and I was really looking forward to reading it. Hidden Valley Road is the story of the Galvin family: Don and Mimi, and their 12 children, born between 1945 and 1965. Of the 10 boys, six developed schizophrenia. Kolker traces the Galvin family from Mimi and Don’s early lives, to their marriage and the beginnings of their family, all the way through to the next generation. We learn about the sick kids and the well ones, […]

“Life was far from harried here. But neither was it still.”

Still Life by Louise Penny

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In a small village in Quebec, a beloved retired teacher is found dead in the woods. She has been shot through the heart by an arrow. Is it murder, or simply a tragic hunting accident? Enter Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, sent from Montreal to investigate. In the way of murder mysteries everywhere, the tiny village of Three Pines is full of odd characters, many of whom are hiding secrets. This is not quite a cozy mystery, and not quite a procedural, either. What this book […]

Everyone Sucks Here

All I Want by Darcey Bell

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Every once in a while, I read a blurb for a new book and put a hold on it through the library. Most of the time, I completely forget I’ve done this until the book shows up on my desk. So All I Want showed up on my desk, and I had absolutely no recollection of why I wanted to read it. The premise is interesting enough: pregnant woman and her Broadway producer husband buy spooky old house in the country. Even better: spooky old […]

“A caste system endures because it is often justified as divine will, originating from sacred text or the presumed laws of nature, reinforced throughout the culture and passed down through the generations.”

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson

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This book has been on my TBR for a long time. Basically since it came out. It’s an Oprah’s Book Club pick, and it was longlisted for the National Book Award. It also feels like everyone, but everyone, was talking about this book. So I was excited to finally find an audio copy available. The premise of Caste is straightforward: Wilkerson posits that the racial inequality we see in America is really a system of caste, where the distinguishing features of the hierarchy happen to […]



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