Florida – Page 4 – Cannonball Read 17

Some places, you never leave the same

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

September 28, 2020 by teresaelectro Leave a Comment

Kicking off my CBR12 Bingo with The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead for the RED book cover square. A beautifully written novel about a segregated Florida reform school during the Jim Crow era. All the boys never left The Nickel Academy the same as when they arrived. The novel flashes between the present and the past through Elwood’s eyes. Each chapter gives you a lyrical moment in time. We learn about the place in pieces, flashing forward to Elwood as an adult. As soon as […]

Timely satire or too soon?

Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen

September 22, 2020 by pixifer 5 Comments

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a petite, wealthy, elderly Republican woman were killed and eaten by a Burmese python? I hadn’t either until Carl Hiaasen put the idea in my head with his latest book, Squeeze Me. Angela Armstrong is the wildlife wrangler hired to remove a Burmese python from a luxury event location in Palm Beach, Florida. Before she can deliver the python’s corpse to the state, it’s stolen from her apartment. At the same time, word has gotten out that […]

Florida Gothic

This Is Not My Beautiful Life by Victoria Fedden

April 1, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I’ve read that the Florida Man archetype is due in large part to police blotters being unrestricted in that state compared to others, but I have to say, it really seems like Florida is the USA’s very own Night Vale. I just reviewed The Orchid Thief and said it was basically Tiger King as written by the New Yorker; this is Tiger King mixed with Say Anything as written by Us Weekly. We find Victoria Fedden eight months pregnant and staying with her mother while […]

I have somehow become a woman who yells.

Florida by Lauren Groff

July 4, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

CBR 11 – The Collection This is the National Book Award finalist collection by Lauren Groff, the author of Fates and Furies, a book that a lot of people loved and I thought was not good. This collection is better than that novel, but limited in other ways. Part of the reason that I didn’t like Fates and Furies is that there was an inconsistent tone, which had the novel straddling a line between realistic and unrealistic (either would be fine and good) but that […]

Home Improvement

Sideswipe by Charles Willeford

January 13, 2019 by Jake Leave a Comment

Alan Sepinwall, my favorite TV critic, has a running gag in his columns where he talks about how he’d like to see a character from whatever show he’s reviewing have a spin-off where they do banal tasks relational to the character’s motives. My personal favorite was the suggestion that goofy Justified gangster Wynn Duffy get a series called Wynnipeg in which he gets continually frustrated at teaching Canadians how to be criminals. At any rate, three books into the Hoke Moseley series and I feel like this one, as well […]

Another Question for Some Other Midnight

September 4, 2018 by sistercoyote Leave a Comment

Hank Goodness is back — from a lot of things — and in Hogtown Market she trades one kind of trouble for about seven or so more. I had a habit of going along and being easy until I had an idea of what might happen next, but experience had taught me some good reasons not to do that anymore. (All quotes from the kindle version and I don’t have page numbers, sorry; title of this post is also a novel pull-quote) Minor spoilers ahead. […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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