Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Yeet the Rich.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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It’s a quiet, early morning in a summer camp in the Adirondack mountains, 1975, when teenager Barbara van Laar is discovered missing from her bunk. The alarm is raised quickly, but there is no sign of Barbara. As the search progresses, skeletons come out of the closet and worlds collide. Barbara is the daughter of the wealthy Van Laar family, owners of the camp and the surrounding land. The Van Laars are remarkably eager to steer the investigation and they don’t seem particularly interested in […]

Campy

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: and also…This is a repeat of the dun-dun square since the book is a mystery Has America found her Tana French? Bold words to be sure. French is my favorite writer and the person I’d argue is our greatest living crime writer. Her character-driven mysteries are sumptuous masterpieces. The Hunter, her 2024 release, is an early favorite for my personal best book of this year. At the very least, I can’t imagine it falling out of the top 3. French […]

They’re All My Friends, And They Died…

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

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I haven’t ugly cried over a book in a hot minute, but man, I sure ugly cried over this one.  This is one of those books that everyone recommends to you and for whatever reason you dig your feet in that it’s probably not going to be for you but you politely say, “Thanks for the recommendation” and then go on about reading anything but that book.  Does anyone else do that? And then invariably, when you sit down to read the book that your […]

Unique and memorable

The Unseen World by Liz Moore

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I forget if it was me or my husband who first read Long Bright River by Liz Moore, but I do remember that I saw it on Barack Obama’s recommended reading from 2020. I was very impressed by Long Bright River, so when my husband encouraged me to read The Unseen World (2016) by Moore, I eventually got around to it. I found The Unseen World to be interesting and well written. I was surprised by how different it was from Long Bright River, but the characters and setting still felt very real. […]

because President Obama told me to

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

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I’m a fan of President Obama, so when he recommends books to read, I am quick to jump on the bandwagon. His recommendations so far have been well written and thought provoking, and Long Bright River (2020) by Liz Moore is no exception. Mickey is a Philadelphia police officer working the streets in the Kensington neighborhood. The area has seen better days, but now its factories are closed and it is overrun with opioid addiction. Mickey is intimately familiar with the opioid crisis as it has killed […]

City of Sisterly Love

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

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Parts of this one hit me hard. I’ve lost multiple high school classmates to drugs/opioids. It’s painful. I don’t even really have the words to express some of the sorrow I’ve felt over lives lost. I never looked at my old neighborhood as a place to escape. I was happy there growing up. But times change. At the heart of the book, this is a story of two sisters who take divergent paths. Those kinds of tales usually aren’t my thing, writers often rely too […]



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