Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Frat Boys and Mean Girls, Gilded Age Edition

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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CBR BINGO 14: Scandal, because heroine Lily Bart is undone by scandals The House of Mirth has been on my list since I first fell in love with The Age of Innocence a quarter of a century ago. Nobody writes the glamour and treachery of Old New York as deliciously as Edith Wharton. I’ve been putting off writing this review because I wasn’t sure how I felt about the novel. I definitely prefer it to Ethan Frome, but it falls short of my favorite Wharton. Yet as time […]

Why do you take all the life out of life? Why do you kill all the beauty?

The Collector by John Fowles

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CBR Bingo: Minds I remember GP saying that collectors are the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn’t really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline—and me. But of course, he is right. They are anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything. I have had John Fowles’ The Collector in my library for a number of years. I recently read that it was one of the first modern psychological thrillers, so it seemed like a good match for the “Minds” category. […]

“Phoenix-like, he flamed against the cloudless sky, looking down upon our miniature school world and all the golden fields of Fairacre.”

Village School by Miss Read

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CBR14Bingo: Cozy My mom had the complete set of these when I was a kid and I’d read them and feel very grown up. All I remembered about the book as an adult was a feeling of coziness and warmth, hence the bingo square. I was struck a few weeks ago with the urge to revisit these and see if my opinion had changed, so I picked up the first book and it was a good quick palate cleanser read after the longer commitment that […]

A Pretty Solid Series

Hideout by Louisa Luna

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Bingo: Elephant (the elephant in the room being the white supremacist group that the townsfolk and police department of Ilona, OR, are desperately pretending aren’t there) This is the third Alice Vega mystery, and while it’s probably my least favorite so far, it’s still pretty good. Alice Vega and her sometimes partner, Max “Cap” Caplan, set out to solve the mystery of what happened to a college football player who disappeared mid-game–by running out of the stadium while still carrying the ball. The search leads […]

Rather Charming

The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer

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Bingo: Adapt (adapted into a Netflix movie, and Enola also has to adapt to dramatically changing circumstances) For some reason, I tend to start new books with the assumption that they won’t be anything special. This feels pessimistic but on the other hand, maybe it saves me from disappointment when a book actually isn’t special, and it gives me a pleasant surprise when a book is good. I didn’t expect to like The Case of the Missing Marquess, just because I’m not really a huge fan […]

“Underneath all the laughs and the gags, it was always about one thing: survival.”

Tanqueray by Stephanie Johnson and Brandon Stanton

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Cbr14bingo Funky (I mean, look at photos of this glorious, gorgeous lady. FUNKY!) If you follow Humans of New York on social media, you probably already have some familiarity with Tanqueray/Stephanie Johnson. HONY creator Brandon Stanton featured her on his site a few years ago, and a star was re-born. Given her fascinating life story, flamboyant style, and colorful storytelling, as well as the great popularity of her story on HONY, Stanton felt strongly that he should get Stephanie the book deal she always knew […]



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