Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Mona-Lisa (Saperstein) of Old New York

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

by 9 Comments

Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel The Custom of the Country is a commentary on manners and society in the vein of a Jane Austen novel, and it is a dark, brooding tale of dysfunctional families reminiscent of the Brontes. The main character, Undine Spragg, is a strikingly beautiful young woman from one of the upstart “new” families, desperately trying to break into New York society and make a good marriage to old money. I’ve seen the name Undine Spragg come up quite a lot recently in […]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results

You Exist Too Much (2020) by Zaina Arafat

by Leave a Comment

“You exist too much”, the narrator’s mother tells her. The narrator’s mother is needy, and manipulative, and homophobic, and devouring; the narrator has grown up censoring and hiding different parts of her self in turn, lying and blending and adapting and code-switching (and part of the brilliance of the book is that it’s sometimes not clear whether this comes out of desire or survival instinct). The narrator is rearranged like a kaleidoscope sometimes by chance and sometimes by circumstance until a relationship crisis forces her […]

A Mysterious Introduction to Agatha Christie

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

by Leave a Comment

Having never read an Agagtha Christie book before, I decided it was only appropriate to begin with her first Poirot mystery, rather than a more well known title like Murder on the Orient Express. The reader follows narrator Arthur Hastings, a soldier recently released on sick leave from the Western Front during WW2. He runs into an old friend, John Cavendish, who invites him to stay at his families sprawling estate, Styles Court. There, Hastings is reintroduced to several characters: Emily Inglethorp, John’s stepmother Mary […]

She sees dead people. They know they’re dead and they want justice.

Shutter: A Novel by Ramona Emerson

by Leave a Comment

The first chapter of Shutter is tough to read. Main character Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque police department, and she is on assignment. A young woman named Erma Singleton has either jumped or been pushed to her death from an overpass over an interstate highway, and now Rita must photograph all the remains at the scene. Being a forensic photographer, seeing the aftermath of such violence on a daily basis and taking hundreds of detailed shots of it, would take an […]

Suspicion

Symposium: A Novel by Muriel Spark

by Leave a Comment

There is something about writers from Scotland, rather like those from Scandinavia, that just brings along the darkness. Reading Muriel Spark’s short 1990 novel Symposium reminded me of a read from last year, Elspeth Barker’s 1991 novel O, Caledonia. Both novels feature old moneyed families fallen on hard times in Scotland, and both cast a gimlet eye on the intellectual, propertied class. Also, both are excellent, quick reads. Symposium is a murder mystery that happens while a dinner party is occurring. Sparks takes us in […]

Bright Young Women

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

by Leave a Comment

I was hesitant to pick up the new novel from Jessica Knoll as I really didn’t care for Luckiest Girl Alive, one of her previous published works which was turned into a Netflix film starring Mila Kunis. But I was pleasantly surpised by Bright Young Women, as it was a refreshing take on the oft cliched true crime drama narrative. Rather than focusing on the perpetrator, Knoll brings attention and humanity to the victims, their friends and their families. The book follows two women across two different […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo