Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

CBR15 Bingo: Getaway

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

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4.5 stars CBR15 Bingo: Getaway (I don’t see a good way to fill the South America square) For this review, I resurrected Mrs. Julien’s romance review template from way back in 2013. I’ve tweaked it, but the major framework is still there. Love, Theoretically is a romance of the enemies to lovers AND I’m scared and unworthy of love: Hero meets heroine. He is the disapproving older brother of the man who is paying her to be his fake girlfriend. He thinks she’s a librarian, […]

Part romance, part memoir

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

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Official book description: When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She’s going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better. That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding […]

Most influential murder mystery of all time?

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

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CBR15 BINGO: You Are Here, because I got this book from my local library I have long been a fan of Agatha Christie, and of Hercule Poirot in particular. I’m certain I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd when I was a young teen, but I didn’t remember anything about it. Granted, it was a long time ago, but given that Roger Ackroyd is considered one of the most influential mystery novels of all time, I was surprised I couldn’t recall any of the details. […]

What’s in a name?

The Swifts A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln

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Cbr15bingo Dwelling, illustrations by Claire Powell This is a really fun work of kids lit (ages 8-12) that involves a murder mystery set in a very old ancestral home. Swift manor is a house full of secret passages and rooms, a place that has evolved over time along with the highly unusual Swift family. Each member of the family, at birth, is given a name chosen at random from the family Dictionary. Names seem to turn out to be strangely fitting for each member; is […]

Cute illustrations make me happy, Part 2

The Atlas of Amazing Birds by Matt Sewell

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CBR15 BINGO: Picture This, because the illustrations are the best part Last year, when I reviewed Penguins and Other Seabirds, I discovered that Matt Sewell has published other collections of his delightful bird illustrations, and I longed to get my hands on some of them. To my delight, I received The Atlas of Amazing Birds for Christmas last year. As with Penguins and Other Seabirds, Sewell’s Atlas of Amazing Birds features small snippets–a paragraph or two at most–about each species along with a beautiful watercolor illustration, […]

CBR15 Bingo: Dwelling

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

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CBR15 Bingo: Dwelling (the “haunted” house is pretty central to the story). This was my fantasy/sci-fi book club’s selection for May, and while I normally don’t like horror books, I read this mainly because I was so impressed with T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone, and also because it really was very short. It’s a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, which I have never read, and because I’m not a huge fan of Poe, I didn’t bother reading it […]



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