Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Cover of You Wanna Be On Top, featuring a plastic doll head looking sad

“If I could be who you wanted / All the time”

You Wanna Be on Top? A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America's Next Top Model (2025) by Sarah Hartshorne

August 10, 2025 by drmllz Leave a Comment

Bingo square: Border. This memoir is about the blurriness of the border between the real and fake, mainly on what we call reality television, but also within trauma-inflected memory. The way I ate this up, as the youth who were born after Sarah Hartshorne’s stint on America’s Next Top Model (2007) would say. Of course, said youth would immediately identify the toxicity of the show (which took me well over a decade to figure out) and make a pithy 8-second TikTok call-out–although they might also […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, America's Next Top Model, cbr17, cbr17bingo, drmllz, LGBTQIA, non fiction, Pop Culture, reality TV, Sarah Hartshorne

drmllz's CBR17 Review No:9 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: #memoir, America's Next Top Model, cbr17, cbr17bingo, drmllz, LGBTQIA, non fiction, Pop Culture, reality TV, Sarah Hartshorne ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Crying in H Mart

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

July 25, 2025 by llp Leave a Comment

This memoir had been on my radar for some time, but I just wasn’t sure if I had the emotional wherewithal to read a book about losing your mother to cancer. I had been thinking about it ever since I watched Michelle Zauner’s band, Japanese Breakfast, play on Saturday Night Live (sidebar: I looked it up to see when that performance occurred, and it was in 2022. WHAT EVEN  IS TIME). However, when I had to do a very quick book shop to get something […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, cbr17, cbr17bingo, Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner, non fiction

llp's CBR17 Review No:8 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: #memoir, cbr17, cbr17bingo, Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner, non fiction ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

I, a person who does not read memoirs, enjoyed this memoir

Just Kids by Patti Smith

July 23, 2025 by Fiat.Luxury 1 Comment

I had hardly ever listened to Patti Smith’s music before picking up this book, and I hardly ever read memoirs, because I find most of them self-indulgent and boring, sorry, memoirists! But this one was recommended to me as a memoir that was “worth it” and it was available from the library. Good news: it was totally worth it! Even if you, like me, are only passingly aware of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorp’s body of work! Smith’s prose is plainspoken and authentic, which makes […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir Tagged With: #memoir, Just Kids, new york, patti smith, robert mapplethorp

Fiat.Luxury's CBR17 Review No:18 · Genres: Biography/Memoir · Tags: #memoir, Just Kids, new york, patti smith, robert mapplethorp ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment
Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon

Girl in a Band: A Memoir

Girl in a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon

July 18, 2025 by llp Leave a Comment

I have to confess I have never been a particular fan of Sonic Youth. I would read about them in Sassy, but I didn’t really hear much of their music other than when the Kool Thing video played on Much Music, and I just didn’t really love it. The band had an aura of cool (New York, friends with Chloe Sevigny, etc) that felt really beyond me because I just did not get it. However, I was in a used record store this spring and […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Featured, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, cbr17, cbr17bingo, kim gordon, non fiction, Sonic Youth

llp's CBR17 Review No:7 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Featured, Non-Fiction · Tags: #memoir, cbr17, cbr17bingo, kim gordon, non fiction, Sonic Youth ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Much Better than St. Louis Sushi

Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller

July 6, 2025 by Ellesfena 4 Comments

The book: Actress of a Certain Age is a collection of autobiographical essays by Jeff Hiller, an actor who spent 20 years playing mostly bit parts and commercials before being cast in Somebody Somewhere on HBO. He talks about his childhood in Texas, his process of coming out, trying to find work he enjoyed, what it’s like to be a struggling actor, and a whole lot of other stuff besides. Why I read it: Somebody Somewhere was an absolute gift during the pandemic, and Hiller was a huge […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, Jeff hiller, LGBTQ, somebody somewhere

Ellesfena's CBR17 Review No:5 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: #memoir, Jeff hiller, LGBTQ, somebody somewhere ·
· 4 Comments

“What is the correct collective noun for us..? Maybe ‘a repugnance of twats’ is most apt?”

The Twat Files by Dawn French

June 12, 2025 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

I am a big fan of British humor, whether on TV, film or the page. While I haven’t seen a lot of the French-Saunders comedy team’s sketch work, I know who they are. I am more familiar with Jennifer Saunders due to Ab Fab, but I was aware that Dawn French had a series called The Vicar of Dibley and I recognized her as “The Fat Lady” in the HP movie franchise. French has written several books, and this latest one The Twat Files got […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Comedy/Humor, Featured, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, cbr17, Dawn French, ElCicco, humor, non fiction, The Twat Files

ElCicco's CBR17 Review No:16 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Comedy/Humor, Featured, Non-Fiction · Tags: #memoir, cbr17, Dawn French, ElCicco, humor, non fiction, The Twat Files ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
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