Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The possibility of pain is where love stems from.”

The Humans by Matt Haig

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Bingo: I think I’m too late for this to count, but just in case I’m not, I’m counting this for the rec’d square, because my sister recommended it to me. And that makes this my 3rd bingo! “The Humans” is about a body-snatching alien who has to pretend to be human, and in the process, falls in love with humanity and life itself. This extraterrestrial visitor is impersonating Andrew Martin, a Cambridge professor who has just proved the Riemann hypothesis. After killing Martin, the bodysnatcher’s mission […]

Enjoyable, but Not a Standout

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

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This is an odd one to write about because while I enjoyed the process of reading it and found the story kept me engaged, enough to rate it 4 stars, I don’t think it’s going to be very memorable for me, and it was hard at first for me to even articulate why I liked it so much. So, what I liked: The short chapters keep the story moving, even though we’re jumping back and forward in time as the novel follows Tom, who has […]

I bet this will be a pretty good movie.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

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SPOILERS KINDA SORTA I went into this ready to love it, and mostly did. Grace is a sad and lonely woman whose son and husband have died. She’s convinced herself she’s undeserving of love, or fun, or of much of a life at all. She’s retreated into math (she’s a teacher) and is kinda just waiting for it to be over. Then she gets some crazy news regarding an inheritance, specifically of a small house on Ibiza, left to her by a former colleague she […]

I’d Like to Check Out a Different Book, Please

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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This book is so tedious I almost can’t be bothered. The Midnight Library follows Nora Seed, an Englishwoman with a rather nondescript life who’s fallen on hard times, both emotionally and financially. After a particularly rough day, she decides she would rather no longer be alive. She comes to in some sort of (god, this is annoying) celestial library, staffed by her favorite school librarian. Nora is told that she has been granted the opportunity to explore other possible lives, lives where she made different […]

Like Sylvia Plath and the fig tree, basically.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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My initial thoughts upon finishing this were mostly that it was a perfectly fine book but that it wouldn’t stick with me, and that has indeed turned out to be the case. It’s been a month since I’ve finished it, and it’s already almost fallen out of my head completely. But it was a short, entertaining read, so if that’s something you’re looking for, and you can stand some blatant emotional manipulation, this might be the book for you! What the blurb doesn’t tell you […]

If you could explore all your possible lives…

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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I saw The Midnight Library (2020) on a random book list that popped up on my phone. It was a list of ten books that the author wished they could read again for the first time. I liked the idea of this list, and I liked some of the books on it. In addition, the premise of this novel sucked me right in. Somewhere, there is a library of books that holds every possible life you could have lived. I’ve spent many moments of my life wondering what […]



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