Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

cbr12bingo – Debut

Boys of Alabama by Genevieve Hudson

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Oh dear. Boys of Alabama is a lot. In Genevieve Hudson’s debut novel we are introduced to small-town Delilah, Alabama through the eyes of Max- the new kid in town. Max and his family just moved to rural America from urban Germany, and we leap into the culture shock with them. Delilah has two religions: Christianity and football- and the two form a dangerous communion. Max is sensitive, quiet, and gay. He can also bring dead things back to life; one touch and wilted flowers bloom. […]

Love Drives Out Fear

Beyond Awkward Side Hugs: Living as Christian Brothers and Sisters in a Sex-Crazed World by Bronwyn Lea

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When I was newly married one of my local churches gave a great series of sermons about marriage. There was helpful advice about mutual service and building lives and support systems together. In retrospect, one piece advice always bothered me, though. It was a variation on The Billy Graham Rule. Billy Graham famously wouldn’t be alone with a woman who wasn’t his wife, in an effort to flee from any hint of sexual immorality, I suppose. (He also made his finances reviewable by others to […]

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Zen Happiness by Jon J. Muth

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My Happy choice for cbr12bingo,The art makes me happy. The sayings are not my personal tastes but will be perfect for the right reader. They are supposed to show that there is happy out there. This makes Zen Happiness a great hostess gift, graduation gift (for all ages) and just a nice book to have in your collection for a pick-me-up from time-to-time. As I said, the art of Jon J. Muth makes me happy. Even his darker colored, shadowy images are happy. Plus, I […]

“A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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If we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world It is time to listen. James Baldwin had a voice unlike any other. He transcends country, creed, and time. His work is astonishing and terribly important. The […]

Discover a familar book for the first time

Brightly Woven: The Graphic Novel by Alexandra Bracken

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Brightly Woven: The Graphic Novel is a refreshingly simple fantasy yet is not superficial. You know the characters and themes because you have read other stories with handsome, mysterious wizards and lovely, plucky heroines. The villains are bad (they even have the scar to prove it). There is magic, secrets and even a possible romance. There is intrigue and a war to be stopped. When Sydelle Mirabil meets Waylon North, she realizes he is not an ordinary wizard. And soon, she learns she is not […]

Nuns and Prostitutes

Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen

A Time to Scatter Stones by Lawrence Block

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I knocked out two quick books in the last day, neither of which won me over. Mariette in Ecstasy Judging by other reviews of this book, it appears as if I’m taking a rare middle ground stance. I thought the prose was beautiful and the scene descriptions lush and full. I enjoyed several individual pages. But with a big cast of characters and a central one the writer makes intentionally mysterious, none of it resonates. Plotting is marginal at best. It just lurches from one […]



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