Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This one was a win for me!

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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This was a little funky in places, a little shaky on its feet, but overall I really enjoyed reading it. This is billed as a thriller, but it also has elements of romance, horror, and mystery in it. I was super stoked when I heard Alyssa Cole was trying her hand at another genre (she normally writes romance, both historical and contemporary). I’ve been hit or miss with her books, particularly her contemporary stuff, so I was really curious to see what she could do […]

The Devil at Your Elbow

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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I confess that I feel entirely inadequate to reviewing When No One is Watching. Thrillers are’t usually my genre. This thriller is layered with racial politics and I didn’t give myself nearly enough time to digest and process. As a white woman of a certain age, I assuredly missed nuances. Despite all of my reservations about myself as a reviewer for this book, I highly recommend it. Sydney Green has moved back to her mother’s brownstone in Brooklyn after a divorce and professional failure. Her mother’s […]

cbr12bingo – Music!

Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

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The House of Jealous Lovers! Yes, it’s an excellent track by The Rapture. It could also be the title of this oral history (the actual title, Meet Me in the Bathroom, is a song by another prominently featured band, but we’ll get to that). This collection covers the movers, shakers, and hangers-on of NYC’s rock “revival” in the early hours of the 21st century- and man oh man are they a petty, catty, and jealous bunch! The “speakers” of this history are a collection of musicians, […]

“We don’t know the people who live across the street or on either side of us.”

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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cbr11bingo – Remix!  Zuri Benitez is of the rambling Benitez family. They live in Brooklyn – in Bushwick – in a one bedroom apartment where she and her four siblings share the living room as their bedroom, where block parties are regular and boisterous, and where she and her family and the neighborhood take care of each other. This is why Zuri views the new family across the street with suspicion. When a developer bought the property and revamped it into a flashy new home, […]

“Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.” – Jose Marti

The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya

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Arturo Zamora and his family are tight — and I mean the whole family.  He and his extended family all live in the same apartment complex. The heart of the family is his Abuela, who still manages her restaurant “La Cocina” which she and her late husband opened when they emigrated here from Cuba. Her daughter is the master chef, but Abuela makes her daily rounds, greeting every customer — and her love and attentiveness is half the reason the restaurant is always packed (the […]

The grit and flavor of a Lehane novel, set in Brooklyn

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This book by a young Dennis Lehane protégé socked me in the gut. It is about a small tragedy in a depressed and ramshackle corner of Brooklyn, which has reverberations that reach deep into the ethnically mixed population of Red Hook and teaches them—and us, the reader– about loss, grief, redemption and hope.   It is a sultry summer night, the bars and street corners are hopping, and teen friends Valerie and June are bored and antsy. They decide to go for a midnight float […]



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