Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Two writers on an island

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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CBR17Bingo: “G” I’m a fan of Emily Henry, and I’ve read most of her books, so when I saw she had a new one out: Great Big Beautiful Life (2025), I knew I would be reading it eventually. I thought this was an interesting read, although it’s not my favorite book by Henry. Alice Scott is a journalist waiting for her big break. Hayden Anderson is a pulitzer-prize winning non-fiction writer who is often grumpy. The two end up on Little Crescent Island vying for a job. […]

“For the one you love? Anything. You unmake the world and build a new one. You do anything to give them what they need.”

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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4.5 stars CBR17 Bingo: G (A book title starting with G)   After months of online research, Alice Scott has tracked down the reclusive former tabloid darling Margaret Ives and hopes to persuade the woman to let Alice write her biography. Imagine the unpleasant surprise for Alice when it turns out that Margaret might not want to tell her life’s story at all, and she basically wants to ‘audition’ Alice and another writer for the next month, before she makes up her mind. That other […]

And the quips just keep on coming

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

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I thought the whole thing about millennials was that we don’t get what we want. The houses, the jobs, the financial freedom. We just go to school forever, then bartend ’til we die. ― Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation Bingo square: Work The main character’s job is her identity, and she reckons with what it means to have the career you want and feel unfulfilled. Poppy and Alex are best friends. After meeting during freshmen orientation week, they don’t see one another until […]

A Love So Powerful You Remake the World For Them

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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Alice Scott is a celebrity journalist who is about to interview for the job of a lifetime. She managed to track down Margaret Ives, an heiress from the Golden Age of Hollywood who vanished from the public eye more than 20 years ago. Margaret agreed to meet with Alice to discuss them potentially working together on an authorized biography of the former media darling. But Alice discovers she’s not the only one up for the job. Hayden Anderson, a music journalist whose first book won […]

I Can Think of Three Things Wrong With This Title

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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When a writer gets as popular as Emily Henry has, I tend to get curious enough to give them a try, whether or not the books themselves hold any appeal to me. Henry’s book are everywhere lately, and her newest has just come out, already affixed with the sticker signifying the approval of the Oprah of the 2020s, Reese Witherspoon. I didn’t expect to like Great Big Beautiful Life, but I did sort of think I’d see the appeal, at least. Instead, I suffered through […]

Mostly-not-funny-but-still-enjoyable Story

Funny Story by Emily Henry

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After decades of only reading romance novels that are also fantasy/sci-fi/historical novels, I think I’m firmly in my contemporary romance era. I like having shorter, easier-to-digest books to read in between the longer fantasy epics that are my favorite (currently working my way through Robin Hobb’s 16-book Realm of the Elderlings series, as well as a re-read of the 15-book Wheel of Time series, so I’m in serious search of things to read in between!). Last month I read most of Ali Hazelwood’s oeuvre and […]



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