Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Opportunity walks into a bar

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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I so loved Station Eleven when I read it earlier this year that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of Emily St. John Mandel’s latest novel. I wasn’t disappointed; yet, The Glass Hotel is so like and at the same time so unlike Mandel’s previous novel that I’m not sure where to begin. While I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Station Eleven, I’m giving it 5 stars because (once again) the writing is so damn beautiful that it transports me. […]

“I’m no expert, but I remember reading somewhere, every time you retrieve a memory, that act of retrieval, it corrupts the memory a little bit. Maybe changes it a little.”

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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This book is highly readable. While it may appear that I am damning with faint praise, that is not my intention. This book is readable because, despite being filled with topics and characters that do not automatically appeal to me, I was interested and invested from page one. Had this book not been written by Emily St. John Mandel I probably would have glanced at the dust jacket and gone on my merry way, but since it was written by her I knew that I […]

Cannonballing with Emily St. John Mandel.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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Well, really, I should have expected this. I knew this book would be incredibly well-written (it was), and that I often have a bad reaction to lit-fic, but I figured her talent would get me through. And that was true, but this really did not speak to me the way that Station Eleven did. Despite that book being about what happens after the end of the world, that book is full of hope for humanity, and while it has elements of heartbreaking sadness, they’re tempered […]

Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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I am late to the posting game but finished Station Eleven soon after Spring Break. I chose this book because it was a Cannonball Read book and already had it in my Kindle. I honestly only remembered it took place in a sort of post apocalyptic world when I began reading it. Of course I started reading the novel in the middle of the pandemic and realized it started with a flu which made me question my choice to have it be my first social […]

“The lights will come back on someday…and then we’ll all finally get to go home.”

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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I am not saying anything you don’t already know when I tell you that this book is simply amazing. I first read this book back for CBR6 (and shockingly — I think I was the first review of it!!), and recommended it to everyone I knew for months afterwards. I bought copies of it for birthdays, and housewarmings, and hostess gifts. I participated in the very first #cannonbookclub. I thought about getting a Survival is Insufficient tattoo. I was all about this book. And I […]

Mesmerizing, magical, terrifying

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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Although it seems a bit trite to recommend Station Eleven on this site (I know it was the latest book club choice- I’m late to the party!) and in a pandemic generally (I feel like its been on every ‘what to read in a pandemic’ book list), I am aggressively recommending this book to anyone looking for a recommendation (and even occasionally to those who aren’t- its that good). For anyone who has somehow missed the hype, Station Eleven is about a pandemic, the fictional […]



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