Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“There is much goodness in him, and he is as noble as a man without real love can be.”

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke

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One evening in Germany in the late 1980s, a mother and her two children sit around the dinner table, expecting the father home from a business trip any minute. As time passes, the teenage daughter ponders her family and her childhood, and slowly reveals the ugly truth behind the facade of a normal family life. This is a short book that functions on two levels. On the surface, it is the portrait of a family that looks rather ordinary at first glance, but the more […]

Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.

Grit by Angela Duckworth

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CBR12 Bingo: How-To I procrastinate a lot. For example, I finished listening to the audiobook of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (2016) by Angela Duckworth months ago, but I’m only finally getting around to writing the review now. I always feel that I can be more efficient and accomplish so much more. Some of this dissatisfaction surely stems from unrealistic expectations, but a larger part comes from a lack of focus and follow through. I wondered if I could learn something from Grit. Angela Duckworth is […]

How to do it (better than you) (CBR12Bingo2: how to)

Cooking by Michael Pollan

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Man, this is a good contender for the color square too because boy howdy can Michael Pollan’s writing turn to purple prose at times. I love reading about food, much to my coworker’s confusion, and particularly books like this, that view cooking as a whole rather than a collection of recipes. I know that reading about food is like dancing about architecture, to borrow from Frank Zappa, but when Pollan waxes poetic at times I wanna roll my eyes. It doesn’t help that Pollan can […]

CBR12 Book Bingo – Friendship

Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

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Big Summer was not what I was expecting, but it was thoroughly enjoyable all the same. While the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads run the gamut from one to five stars, I wouldn’t swing too far in either direction. I feel this nicely fits in the three-to-four star range. It contains all of the elements of a fun beach read, even if some aspects feel squeezed in. Big Summer tells the story of Daphne Berg, a plus-size influencer, and Drue Cavanaugh, a nauseatingly beautiful socialite. Six years […]

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. But they’d still be charged. (CBR12Bingo2: I wish)

Point B by Drew Magary

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This is a really weird book for the “I Wish” square on its face, given that it involves a dead sister, an alcoholic best friend, a stalker, an even larger economic equality gap, and the ennui that comes from the hedonic treadmill rendering the magical prosaic. But you guys, it’s about teleportation! Can you imagine getting BORED of being able to instantaneously port to a tropical island? To hem and haw about having an outdated teleportation device, or having to pay a teleportation bill in […]

You get five made up words per story, and ideally zero rapes. (CBR12Bingo2: Fresh start)

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

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I will gorydamn post this comic every time I read a book that conspicuously changes language to show that we’re not in Kansas anymore. I get it. Distant future. Mars. Different classes differentiate themselves by the way they speak. Read you loud and clear.  I need you to not with the slang. It’s so frustrating, because there was a lot about this book I enjoyed, but the slang was just one of the affectations of the book that became distracting. The Roman gods, the Roman […]



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