Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Immigrant Stories

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

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Bingo Square: Migrant – and bingos 8, 9 and 10 – 1st row, 1st column, and diagonal (top left to bottom right). I didn’t really have anything from the books I had read that I thought would be a good fit (there was a super forced fit but it felt disrespectful given everything going on in the world with immigration etc). When I had been searching through my TBR pile, I had considered several Isabel Allende novels as an option but couldn’t decide. So when […]

Refusing to conform to stereotypical gender norms on two different continents

My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende

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3.5 stars Thanks to Netgalley and RandomHouse for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Emilia del Valle Claro grows up in San Francisco in the latter half of the 19th Century. Her mother, Molly, is of Irish descent and was a nun before she was seduced by an unscrupulous young Chilean aristocrat, who left her pregnant and entirely without support (she obviously had to leave the convent). She married Francisco Claro, the intelligent and kind-hearted teacher at the Aztec Pride School, and he’s the […]

Great, other than one of the main charachters

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

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CBR 16 Bingo – Vintage: Published in 1982 I read this book for my book club and probably wouldn’t have picked it up otherwise because it seemed somewhat interesting from the description, but it wouldn’t have been very high up there on my TBR. I will say, I’m glad I read. This book follows the Trueba family, especially Esteban, the patriarch with political schemes and wild desires, and Clara, his wife, a clairvoyant that connects with spirits. It also follows their daughter Blanca, who is […]

Whimsy and Whoa

If You Want  to Ride a Horse by Amy Novesky

Perla The Mighty Dog by Isabel Allende

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Picture book round up part… I have lost track! As they are so much fun I just read and read and read….. I am sure if I piled them up they would tower over me a few times over! All were read via an online copy, but both are currently available.  The publisher’s description of, If You Want  to Ride a Horse, says it is “A whimsical guide through the steps of riding a horse, whether the horse is real or lives in the imagination” […]

“The world is paralyzed, and humanity is in quarantine. It is a strange symmetry that I was born in one pandemic and will die during another.”

Violeta by Isabel Allende

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This was the library book club pick for the month and my first Isabel Allende novel. I looooved it, but it was a highly contested work at the book club (with many people rating it very poorly), but since this is MY review I’ll defend my position, and (somewhat begrudgingly) give insights into the critiques. This novel reminded Min Jin Lee’s “Pachinko” in its tone and ability to captivate me, and in introducing me to a geography/history that I don’t know a lot about (in […]

How Cannonball Read has given me permission to not finish a book

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

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I love how supportive the Cannonball community is with the constant reassurance one doesn’t have to review everything read and that it’s okay to not finish a book.  Historically, I have been a finisher of books.  Then I started reading Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James for Cannonball Bingo 2020. Thirty-six pages in I quit because I could not handle the near constant parade of sex, bodily fluids, violence, and disparaging remarks about boys who are actually girls and vice versa.  That was an […]



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