Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You made a severed finger into a feckin’ snow globe.” “It was almost Christmas,” she says with a shrug. “It felt … festive.”

Leather & Lark by Brynne Weaver

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3.5 stars CBR16 Bingo: Bananas   Lark Montague and Lachlan Kane have an unfortunate first meeting, when Lark during Halloween has had an “accident” and needs a car and a body fished out of a lake. Lachlan is the man forced by his employer to come help her do this. Lachlan is in scuba gear, Lark is heavily made up in a Halloween costume. Lachlan chooses to force Lark into the car of his trunk to transport her unseen away from the incident site, not […]

My favourite book growing up

Ronja Rövardotter (Ronia the Robber's Daughter) by Astrid Lindgren

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CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy (this was my absolutely most favourite book as a child) Nowhere Books Bingo: Has been adapted into a movie or a TV show CBR16 Bingo: Horses (the back cover has a picture of the horses that Ronja and Birk tame during their stay in the forest) Ronja is the only daughter of the chief of a robber band. She’s born during a particularly stormy night when a lightning strike creates a giant gorge in the stone fortress where she grows up. […]

This was disappointing

The Witches of Vardø by Anya Bergman

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In 1662, a former mistress of the king of Denmark-Norway (Norway was a Danish colony for about 400 years, for those not big into their history trivia), Anna Rhodius is sent into exile to a fortress in Vardø in the very north of Norway. She convinces herself that she has been sent there to help root out witchcraft, and if she does a good job, she will be welcomed back by the king with open arms. Zigri is the young widow of a fisherman, who […]

A collection that has aged well

Interpreter of Maladies: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

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Cbr16bingo Bollywood (Bingo #1) This debut collection of short stories from Jhumpa Lahiri won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Interpreter of Maladies contains nine stories that deal with topics such as troubled marriages, the difficulties of adjusting to life in the US for Indian immigrants, and women who are outsiders (and therefore problematic). I found myself deeply moved by these stories which, 25 years after their first publication, provide a compassionate and brutally honest view of their characters’ lives and choices. These are people who […]

Ali Wong is a funny lady

Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets and Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong

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Nowhere Books Bingo: About someone you want to learn more about I don’t think I’d heard of Ali Wong before her first Netflix special, Baby Cobra. I’ve now seen all her stand-up specials and also enjoyed Always Be My Maybe, a fun romantic comedy she wrote and starred in with Randall Park, and famously got Keanu Reeves to star as himself. I’ve heard very good things about Beef, but there’s just too much TV out there at the moment, and too little time (especially if […]

Yeah, definitely going to need a 2nd read

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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CBR16 BINGO: Part 2, for the second book in the Locked Tomb series I look back fondly on the days when, in my innocence, I thought Gideon the Ninth was a complicated novel. I read that book twice, thank goodness, because if I hadn’t, I would have either been even more confused by Harrow the Ninth, or I’d have shrugged off details that didn’t make sense thinking I was simply misremembering them. After finishing Harrow the Ninth, I am spent. I’m as weak and cowed […]



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