#memoir – Page 43 – Cannonball Read 17

Shake Me Because I’m Falling Asleep From This Book

To Shake the Sleeping Self by Jedidiah Jenkins

February 15, 2019 by Rachel Leave a Comment

To Shake the Sleeping Self by Jedidiah Jenkins Finished Feb. 15, 2019, took 11 days to read 2 Stars on Goodreads Genre: Non-Fiction Rating 7/7 for 2019 overall, 2/2 for Non- Fiction Let me preface this by stating that I feel bad for the review I am about to write. I realize this is a memoir about someone’s journey, which was likely emotional, passionate, and life-changing. But unfortunately, that doesn’t translate to a book. And now I am about to crap all over that book. […]

An affair to remember, I guess

The princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

February 14, 2019 by Niki 1 Comment

I’m not totally sure why I picked this book, I didn’t watch the Star Wars movies until I was in college, and as such, they never caught fire for me. I enjoy watching them with my 9 year old kid, because they bring him joy, but I’m Luke warm over them (my phone capitalized the “luke” so I didn’t set out to make a pun, but here we are). I was browsing audio books from my library and I wanted a light read. This book […]

Is it too soon to call my favorite book of 2019?

Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky

February 12, 2019 by Blingle Bells 1 Comment

You guys, I could not put this book down. It was also kind of like eating a Twix bar hidden in a Fiber One bar wrapper, because whenever anyone asked me what I was reading and I said that it was a memoir about the hotel industry and I couldn’t tear myself away from it long enough to function, for whatever reason the topic struck people as a much more dry and scholarly than it was. And I really don’t know why – what goes […]

How gender screws with all of us

The Gender Games: the problem with men and women, from someone who has been both by Juno Dawson

February 11, 2019 by KCRinYYC 1 Comment

Part memoir and part introduction to gender and trans issues, Dawson, a trans woman, strikes a balance between her personal experience with gender, both pre- and post-transition, and a wider discussion of how gender messes with all of us. Her main argument is that gender is a ridiculously narrow set of expectations that hurts everyone: cis and trans, binary and non, female and male, from before we are even born. As someone with only a surface understanding of gender theory, I liked how clearly she […]

Once upon a time in the USSR

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel by Ludmilla Petrushevskya

February 10, 2019 by Chris Leave a Comment

Well, this does explain some of those wonderful stories that Petrushevskaya writes. Petrushevskaya’s memoir is about her early years – her family’s fall from grace, her birth, her life during war time. She lived as a half feral child for several years. But like in her stories, her use of language is beautiful and her comments on life searing. “We ate glue in secret because of the rumor that it was flavored with real cherries” (22) she writes describing how scare food was, especially for […]

When he casually fails to mention his other fiancée

Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin

February 9, 2019 by yesknopemaybe 4 Comments

In college, I lived in one of those big houses that had a million roommates. There were always people moving in and out and while I was close with many of my roommates, others stayed for just a short while and we never got to know them very well. One of these was a woman who was a compulsive liar. She told small lies and big lies, so many lies that it hardly seemed she even noticed she was telling lies. It was like she […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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