Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This wasn’t the conversation I was trying to have.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

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I read Rooney’s “Normal People” a couple of months ago and it is, easily, one of the best books that I have read this year. I wish, however, that I had read this book BEFORE I read “Normal People.” In a lot of ways, this debut reads like a practice run for her second book. Frances and Bobbi, once lovers, have settled into a very close friendship while at college in Dublin. When a writer/photographer, Melissa, wants to do a piece about their spoken word […]

Maybe not his best, but not terrible either. Bingo #3

Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbo

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Cbr11bingo TBR/Bingo #3 There’s nothing like a book sale to help me stock up on a ton of books that I would probably never have given a second glance to otherwise. Last spring, our local library’s book sale coincided with the going-out-of-business sale of the local Warehouse Books. This is how I ended up with Midnight Sun. I recognized Jo Nesbo’s name and figured this was a good opportunity to familiarize myself with his work. Midnight Sun does not feature Nesbo’s well known detective Harry […]

The past is a black hole, cut into the present day like a wound, and if you come too close, you can get sucked in.

Severance by Ling Ma

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Severance is a beautiful book with a lovely pink cover and a mysterious title. It opens and unfolds slowly as you read and then it just stops. It jumps backwards and forwards in time in a slow, meandering pace that feels like it ultimately amounts to nothing. We begin by meeting Candace in a post-apocalyptic world where most of the population has succumbed to Shen fever. Candace has joined a small band of survivors, but she spends most of her time reminiscing about the time […]

Well it ain’t Gone Girl but it’ll do

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks

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  WARNING. The review is a bit spoilery.   On its face, The Wife Between Us is the story of a woman obsessed with stopping the wedding of her former husband and his new, much younger bride. The perspective change happens when we learn her true motivation for doing so and learn the story of her journey from blissful new bride potential homewrecker. The explanation for what is supposed to be the central twist is a little bit silly and detracts from the book but […]

“The fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice.” (Bingo)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

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#CBR11 Bingo: Listicle (on a bunch of best of 2018 lists, including NPR, Bustle and Bookbub). Would also work for “Award Winner”, as it’s won a Locus Award, and ALA Award and an Audie, or “Remix”, as it’s a fairy tale retelling. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish moneylenders, but her father is a dreadful one, who doesn’t have the heart to actually claim back the debts that the villagers owe, even when his daughter is starving and the long, cold winters are making his wife sicker and […]

It’s about the Monkey Trial but so much more

Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

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Cbr11bingo History/schmistory Inherit the Wind, the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, was inspired by the “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925. That real historic event brought the attention of the nation to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, as two titans — William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow — battled in a courtroom over the place of Darwin’s theory of evolution in the classroom. This matter, sadly, is still debated today, which makes the play as timely as ever. Yet, Inherit the Wind […]



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