Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

hide all you want, but nothing stays buried

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

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Jeanie and Julius have spent their entire lives together. Over half a century of life together has passed, and they have never spent an entire night separate from each other. Jeanie tends the garden with their mother, Dot, and Julius works odd jobs in the village. Jeanie, Julius, and Dot depend fiercely on one another. They accept nothing from the outside world- at least, Jeanie and Julius spent the last 51 years believing that they were accepting nothing and indebted to no one but each […]

In the Garden of Eden

Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

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Cbr12bingo Orange, BINGO (color diagonal) Bitter Orange is a rather dark and twisted tale, perfect for those who enjoyed Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen. Set during the summer of 1969, this novel features Lyntons, an old abandoned English home in the country, full of secrets and perhaps ghosts; Cara and Peter, an attractive and lively couple who are temporarily in residence there; and a single, middle-aged woman named Frances who also spends the summer there and acts as our narrator, reviewing the events of that time from […]

No One Was Likable

Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller

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Wow. No one was likable in this one except one character (Nan). Maybe you can read a book about fairly unpleasant people, but I tend to not be able to especially when the writing isn’t that great either. The ending was a laugh too. I think Fuller wants to have a sense of mystery about Ingrid Coleman, but if we are supposed to believe what Fuller is hinting at, she’s probably the worst of the Coleman’s. “Swimming Lessons” is about the Coleman family. About 11 […]

Just in case I needed another reason to dislike camping

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Peggy Hillcoat is the daughter of a famous German concert pianist and an English survivalist, who despite the disapproval of his wife keeps stockpiling supplies in a shelter in their garden and preparing for the worst. Only eight years old, she doesn’t question what is happening when her father takes her away from their big house in London while her mother is away on tour. He takes her to the German countryside, to a delapitated cabin remote in the mountains, explaining that this is their […]

And you thought your adolescence was bad

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Peggy Hillcoat is an eight-year-old girl growing up in London with her concert pianist, German mother and English, survivalist-leaning father. When her mother goes on a concert tour, her father takes her to a run-down cabin in the remote woods of Germany and tells her that the rest of the world has been destroyed, including all of her family and friends. Our Endless Numbered Days (2015) by Claire Fuller alternates between Peggy growing up in the woods with her father, and when Peggy is recently returned […]

The camping trip of nightmares

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Oh, this was good. It was creepy and did a lot of hinting around at certain things before whacking you on the face with the facts at the very end. Excellent! “Dates only make us aware of how numbered our days are, how much closer to death we are for each one we cross off. From now on, Punzel, we’re going to live by the sun and the seasons.’ He picked me up and spun me around, laughing.’Our days will be endless.” Peggy (known as Punzel […]



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