Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Jane Eyre – She Goth Loads of Love (CBR Bingo 11 – Classics square)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

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As part of CBR Bingo (plus I always wanted to read it a second time), my choice for the square “Classics” was Jane Eyre. A lot of my friends love this book, which made me want to read it critically to understand what it was about this that makes it so popular. I tried hard to like it, but could only like parts of it. Right from the lead character (a 10 year old girl), to her family (created by the author to be as […]

Not at all what I was expecting. #CBRBingo – Birthday

Firestarter by Stephen King

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I’ve read a fair amount of Stephen King by this point, and this is one of the better ones. Aside from some dated language and ideas (fatphobia, gender essentialism, homophobic/racist language used mostly by bad guys), I liked this one almost as much as I like Misery. Good villains, simple but effective story. Just a really well done horror/suspense novel. The 1980s just ooze from every page. I actually wasn’t anticipating the intensity of this novel. It opens in the middle of things, and our […]

I Think The Wind is Named “Eunice.” That’s a Good Name for Wind.

The Name of the Wind: (Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1) by Patrick Rothfuss

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This book has been kicking around my recommended lists, and I’ve seen it reviewed a couple times here and there, then I saw it was part of the Pajiba Book Archive (though the link to the actual article seems to be broken? Or maybe the article is just too old at this point.) so I finally picked it up and started reading it. It’s a good, solid first novel in a fantasy world. Kvothe the Kingkiller, Kvothe the Arcane, Kvothe the Bloodless, Shadicar, Lightfinger, Six […]

Family Ties

The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler

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Philip Marlow is a hard boiled private detective in Los Angeles who could use a case. He could use a lot of things, but he’d settle for a case. Until one morning when a plain, proper girl from Manhattan Kansas walks into his office asking him to find her brother. This is a great, pulpy mystery set in Hollywood in the 40s. Chandler is well into his groove with this one and Philip Marlow gets dragged through hell before he can untie all the knots […]

Better late than never for CBR? (Bingo Square: Classics)

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

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I read A Study in Scarlet a few weeks ago to prepare for Cannonball Read and… forgot to review. So here’s my quick review before I dive into the discussion posts because I don’t want to be influenced. I’d read this before as a kid, when I went through a big Sherlock Holmes binge and read as many of the stories as I could get my hands on before I eventually got rather bored. Reading this now as an adult, I remember why I got bored–this one […]

“In the name of King Arthur, and of the old world before the dark came.”

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

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CBRBingo11 – Back to School! I’ve read this book about 800 times. The first time I read it was with my fifth grade class, and I’ll forever thank Mrs Cook for introducing us to this wonderful story. I blasted through the rest of the five-book “sequence” after that and it remains my favorite middle grade series (before middle grade was a thing). This year I am participating once again in the Dark is Rising readathon  and so it also made sense for this to be […]



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