Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The best way to go through life is to be a major donor of kindness”

Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas

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Bingo: I am counting this book for the “Diaspora” space on my bingo, since it centers on the author’s experience as a member of the Iranian diaspora. This was a memoir covering Firoozeh Dumas’ life, from her family’s move from Iran to California when she was 7, up through her teenage years and young adulthood. She writes about her experiences with American food (hot dogs are pretty gross, if you think about it), her family vacations to American tourist sites, her disastrous stint at summer […]

This Mess is Pretty Neat

Mess by Michael Chessler

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The colorful cover of the book and its glitzy (and ditzy) Hollywood backdrop easily lure the reader in, for a quick beach or travel read. The chapters are set up as vignettes to showcase various Hollywood types and their messy lives – and how heroine Jane, a professional organizer (think a cross between a celebrity assistant and a devotee of lifestyle guru Marie Kondo), can brave the traffic of Los Angeles freeways and twisty/turny roads in the Hollywood Hills to save them all. Author Mike […]

The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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I recently decided to re-read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (it was my choice for my book group). It was as fun as I remembered. Carter’s sexy takes on traditional fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Puss in Boots” is at times over-the-top in its prose, humor, and horror – which suits her feminist takes on damsels in all sorts of distress perfectly. She delivers a great vampire tale, “The Lady of the House of Love,” too.  But I think […]

I feel the title should have been Malibu *Burning*

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Bingo: Play – Surfing is an important part of this family. My introduction to Taylor Jenkins Read was Daisy Jones and the Six.  I then went on to Carrie Soto is Back and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.  All listened to in audiobook format, which were amazing.  Highly recommend them.  It was a happy day when I found Malibu Rising in a free little library.  I needed a book to take to the beach a week ago and this seemed like the perfect candidate. It was nice […]

“Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people”

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

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Bingo: I’m using this book for the “Arts” Bingo space, since the book centers on multiple characters who are artists and on the definition of art itself. I should really know better, at this point. I should know that if a book has Fredrik Backman’s name on the cover, it will break my heart. But I let myself be tricked by the cover art of carefree swimmers, and went into it expecting a light beach read. While the story did involve beaches, it was not […]

It was easier to read once I had the mental image of Robert Pattinson as Mickey in my head

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

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3.5 stars Nowhere Books Bingo 25: Book adapted into a movie or TV show CBR17 Bingo: Diaspora (Mickey7 and the others on his crew are colonists on a hostile planet far from their original home) Mickey Barnes has, through some truly idiotic decisions, ended up acquiring so much gambling debt that he now has to leave the planet. Literally the only way he can do that is to go with the space expedition, which is setting off to colonise the far-off planet of Niflheim. Unfortunately, […]



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