Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Ok! Ok! I have a dirty mind so this wasn’t what I thought of when they said “Taking a missionary position.”

Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo by Brittany Long Olsen

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No, this book, Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo by Brittany Long Olsen, will not convert you. Yes, Olsen does talk about her church and its beliefs. If you take this as a book that covers almost two years of her life, as a book that just lets you see into a person’s life and take it as that and not as a long LDS pamphlet, then it is fine. If you are a former missionary, if you are a member, if you […]

Corey’s faith

Visitations by Corey Egbert

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Visitations by Corey Egbert is more of a rating of 3.5 than a pure 4 as there were areas I would have liked to have seen “more” of the story (I like that we don’t have a lot of “before divorce” (just enough to let you know what has happened) but seeing more of the Visitations (what their mother calls the time Corey and his sister, Sarah, have with their father) would be interesting. Afterall, this is part of the title. And I would have […]

What Do We Do When Doomsday Doesn’t Come?

The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family by John Glatt

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When Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell meet, they have long held alternate beliefs about souls and the coming of the end times. But together, they advance down the path of delusion, culminating in the murder of Lori’s children Tylee and JJ. I knew of this case from fairly recent developments, when the bodies of the children were found last year, but through this book I learned that the murders had been decades in the making. The author follows Lori and Chad from their childhoods, tracing […]

Utah v. Lafferty

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

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Not long after, Ron handed Dan a piece of paper through the bars. Written on it was a revelation that Ron said he’d just received, in which God commanded Dan to let Ron kill him. After praying for guidance, Dan says, “I felt I should submit to what it said, and we discussed how it might be done.” In 1984, two men, fervent Mormon fundamentalists, murdered their sister-in-law and niece and claimed they had been commanded to do so by God. Krakauer is one of […]

Okay, it is a lot cheesy, but also a cute love story

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

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Note: all images shamelessly stolen from the internet as I really got into the Simon & Schuster free online books this month.   I was on the fence about Autoboyography by Christina Lauren (or Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings). I was not sure I was reading for another GLBTQ book so soon after the others I had read, and frankly thought the cover too cute. And when I got into the book, the “meet cute” romance tone of the story explained the cover. And yes, […]

Educated – The ultimate in “fish out of water” life experience

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

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If you liked The Glass Castle or Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis or Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth Growing Up Poor then you just might like Educated. And “like” is not the appropriate word for any of these books really. Appreciated is a better sentiment. Because each of these is a tough read, hearing about someone’s struggles to fit in when everything about them sticks out, and is […]



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