Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

“California, here we come, right back where we started from…”

Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History by Alan Sepinwall

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I picked the lyric above from Phantom Planet’s “California” (The O.C.’s theme song) because it nails how I feel about reconnecting with The O.C., a show that holds a curiously large place in my heart. I’ve visited the show at various life stages, from being a teenage college student all the way through being a grown family man with kids of my own. Life changes, but my love for The O.C. stays the same. Why? What keeps me coming back? I picked up Alan Sepinwall’s […]

Sensible, Humane Advice

Mini Habits for Weight Loss by Stephen Guise

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Normally I avoid books like Mini Habits for Weight Loss like the plague. I had an eating disorder many years ago and dieting is an anathema to me. However, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 kidney disease recently and have to change my lifestyle in an attempt to stop further deterioration. It’s a tricky spot. Luckily I like all kinds of food and I can cook, so that will help. But there’s no getting around that it would help to lose some weight and increase […]

This Sh*t Is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Final Girls by Riley Sager

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A young woman stumbles out of the woods in a red dress, screaming loudly that someone is chasing her. A nearby police officer finds her and shoots the crazed killer, a psychopath who has escaped from a nearby mental hospital. Years later, Quincy is known as a ‘final girl’: the only survivor of a bloody massacre. There are other Final Girls and when one of them dies, another comes to find Quincy. Quincy, at first, is happy to have Sam with her: Sam knows what […]

A Guest in the House: a twisty, turny, graphic novel

A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll

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mood music: Crazy – gnarls barkley The last graphic novel I read was Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, a dark and gritty telling of the Joker’s origins as a failed comedian turned violent criminal. This seems to be a pattern with the graphic novels that I gravitate towards, including Watchmen and Maus, and this novel is no different. Written and illustrated by E.M. Carroll (formerly Emily Carroll), the story tells the tale of Abby, a recently married discount store clerk, and follows her day-to-day with […]

I just want to see what the performance reviews look like

The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend by Rob Copeland

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Like the delightful Marie Kondo, I love mess. Especially if it’s someone else’s. Copeland tells the origin story of Ray Dalio, hedge fund phenomenon turned self-help guru. Though an indifferent student in school, Dalio was locked in at his gig as a caddy for the wealthy where he made the connections that led to the establishment of Bridgewater Associates. At first, Dalio obsesses over building a kind of Grand Unified Theory for investing that accounts for the vagaries of geopolitics. Once he has successfully codified […]

I ain’t no fortunate son

The Women by Kristin Hannah

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I have never actually read any Kristin Hannah before but this was the selection for the month for a book club I am in – I know The Nightingale was very popular at one point but I think I just hit the point of wondering how many more World War II novels we needed right around the time it came out? But I also get the the appeal – because World War II, at least from an American perspective, is one that is easy to […]



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