Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Well, I got to 52!

P.S. I love you by Cecilia Ahern

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Ahern wrote this book when she was 21. The premise is clever, a bitter-sweet gimmick where Holly’s husband dies, but he leaves her a series of letters to help her cope in the first year without him. Each letter has a surprise or a challenge and always ends with “P.S. I love you.” “Their plan had been very simple: to stay together for the rest of their lives. ” The book however does not quite work. Writing about the grief and pain of losing someone […]

“The worst thing about being naked and then being hit by a car is that road rash is a problem for skin.”

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I might be a little burned out with poetry or just have heard and read so much of Neil Hilborn, that I am not jumping up and down over The Future by him as I have with his other book or with other Button Poetry Poets. Yet, The Future is still amazing. He knows what he is talking about with depression, life and death. He has lived, and is living, his subject matter. He “gets it” and wants to share that with you. He is […]

Our Days are Numbered, but not the feelings You’ll get after reading Hilborn

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Amazons review of Our Numbered Days by Neil Hilborn hits it on the head. He might be talking about love and heartbreak, but he is also dealing with mental illness, loss and death, therefore there is “nothing saccharine” about it. His humor is dark, self-deprecating and raw. Sometimes too raw. He is honest to a fault sometimes and rips the band aid right off. Even when there is no band aid on in the first place. While accessible to almost everyone these poems are for […]

A warm and lovely book that took me by surprise

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Anna is living with her family in Ireland, recouperating after an accident. Everybody is taking great care of her, but she can’t shake the feeling that people are tip-toeing around her. And she can’t seem to reach Aidan, who is still in New York. As soon as she’s healed she decides she must go back to her old apartment, her job as a PR for a beauty brand, her old life.   Anybody out there is written in a light, breezy language with a likable […]

She had already learned the dangers of sincerity.

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Faithful followers of my must-read, brilliantly executed, and always punctual reviews will know that I only recently discovered Roxane Gay last year, with Bad Feminist. And you will know that based on reading only that collection of essays, I will follow her to the ends of the earth, shout her name from the rooftops, aspire to be as articulate, hilarious, and honest as she, and never be dissuaded from my undying love for her. Difficult Women is haunting and beautiful. I was nervous. My expectations […]

I’m a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl…

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Patricia Engel has published two other books, the short story collection Vida and the novel It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris. Even though I haven’t read either of those books, I felt that I needed to read her new novel, The Veins of the Ocean. Not only because the reviews were intriguing (and very positive) but also because I don’t remember ever reading anything by a Colombian American novelist. The Veins of the Ocean is the story of Reina Castillo. When we first meet Reina […]



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