Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A little mystery and a lot of court intrigue

The Missing of Clairedelune: The Mirror Visitor Book 2 by Christelle Dabos

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Cbr14bingo Elephant (memory) the recovery of one character’s memories is key to the plot Book two of Christelle Dabos’ The Mirror Visitor series continues to enthrall. Main character Ophelia, who has the gifts of being able to travel through mirrors and “read” the history of objects in her hands, and her betrothed Thorn, the prickly Treasurer of the remote ark known as The Pole, are fast approaching their wedding day and seem no closer to developing a meaningful bond to each other. Meanwhile, in the […]

So many people spent their lives wishing to be understood. All Alice wanted was more time.

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

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CBR14BINGO: Time Square (Hitting the nail on the head here. Very literal. Time in the title. The whole plot is about Time. You get it.) Alice is about to turn 40. A milestone birthday for anyone, but particularly for someone who generally keeps their life on an unproblematic even keel. She lives in New York City where she grew up. Works in the admissions department of her old high school, walking the same hallways of her youth. She even has a convenient boyfriend that doesn’t make […]

..they suspended their arguments, united for once in their astonishment at the unusual spectacle of an elephant lumbering across the square.

The Elephant of Belfast by S. Kirk Walsh

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CBR14 BINGO: Elephant Square (Another literal one. Sometimes googling for the square yields great results, sometimes not so much. ) In 1940s Belfast, a young woman working at the local zoo sees the arrival of a new baby elephant as her opportunity to prove herself. Hoping to become the first female zookeeper at the Belfast zoo, Hettie quickly takes on the responsibility of handling the elephant in addition to all of the menial responsibilities delegated to her. Work is her escape after Hettie’s father abandons […]

No one had ever told them that at the end there was a choice and it is not the dying who make it.

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan

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CBR14 BINGO: Bird square (Full disclosure: this book is not about birds. In my defense of this square filler, the book’s blurb mentions orange-bellied parrots. Parrots do appear in the story, albeit briefly, and I’m counting it because I had to read this book and I want credit for it.) Did you ever read a book that you knew would be considered a masterpiece by a lot of people, could even understand why people would think that and still find the reading of it not worth […]

I am a bad mother but I am learning to be good.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

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CBR14 BINGO: Rec’d Square (Barack Obama’s Summer 2022 Reading List. And, just about everybody’s book club recommends this.) This is a really tough one to review without giving BIG plot points away. Proceed with caution. It’s easy to feel guilty when you’re a mother. When my son was born almost 7 weeks early, a social worker came to visit me in my hospital room while he was still in the NICU. From what I remember from that day 17 years ago, the social worker was kind […]

A Librarian Hero Story Begins!

A Winter’s Promise: The Mirror Visitor Book 1 by Christelle Dabos

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Cbr14bingo Cold A Winter’s Promise is the first book in a YA quartet by French author Christelle Dabos. It’s 490 pages long, and I tore through it within a few days. Book #2 is already queued up and I’m hoping that the storytelling continues to keep me hooked in. Dabos has created a steampunk world that has been divided not just politically and culturally, but also physically due to a “rupture.” Long in the past, a formerly unified planet broke up into different planets or […]



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