Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Nothing like the TV series, and that’s a good thing

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton

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Cbr17bingo “B” I loves me some Edith Wharton. Wharton wrote what she knew: late 19th/early 20th century old New York society (think “The Gilded Age”) and its dark underbelly. Wharton grew up amongst the New York elite, and in novels like The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country and House of Mirth, she devastates readers with stories of stifling social mores, the struggle of “new money” families to break into elite “old money” circles, and the terrible repercussions for women dependent on men […]

A swing and a miss from Scalzi

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

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Bingo: Black I’ve been a longtime Scalzi fan since a friend insisted I read Old Man’s War.  However, his last trilogy, The Collapsing Empire, didn’t do it for me.  Then along came The Kaiju Preservation Society, 5 star read, followed by Starter Villain, 5 star read.  Scalzi was on a roll!  After seeing him at an event for Starter Villain, I was so geeked for the final book in this triptych, When the Moon Hits Your Eye.  Scalzi explained this at the event and here is a concise description […]

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

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Cbr17bingo School This short novel is considered Muriel Spark’s best work. Set in a girls’ school in Edinburgh in the 1930s, it tells the story of a group of school girls and their influential, charismatic teacher Miss Jean Brodie. “The Brodie Set,” as the girls and their teacher are known, attract envy and suspicion from both students and staff at Marcia Blaine school as Miss Brodie flouts convention and invites her young students into confidences that are deeply inappropriate. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie […]

There’s something about Mary

Allegedly: A Novel by Tiffany D. Jackson

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Cbr17bingo White (bingo #1) I’ve previously read and favorably reviewed two of Tiffany D. Jackson’s novels: Monday’s Not Coming and Grown. Jackson is an outstanding YA novelist, taking on challenging topics such as murder, sexual predation and mental illness. Her novels feature black girls who are sexualized and viewed as adults even though they are children. Allegedly, Jackson’s 2017 debut novel, involves all of the above: a black girl accused of murdering a white baby, her abuse while incarcerated, teenaged pregnancy, and lots of undiagnosed […]

Gothic mystery novel at it’s most just finest

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

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While on a trip to Montreal, I had a back up book in the suitcase, but the mood just wasn’t right for The Haunting of Hill House – hot, humid holidays do not call for scary, dense, chilly horror novels. So, while wandering through Old Montreal, we found a multi-lingual bookstore a few minutes before closing. Feeling rushed, I picked one of the staff recommendations, a mystery novel with a very bright cover. I had never heard of Riley Sager before but I do seem […]

“The past is the future”

Obasan by Joy Kogawa

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Cbr17bingo citizen Over the years, I have read a number of books that have dealt with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy and Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine were all written from personal, family experiences of that shameful chapter in US history that was left out of history books when I was in school (and is probably being removed from them now). I had never heard of Joy […]



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