Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

with this post, you will know every book i read this year and how i felt about them

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz

Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez

Ten Dead Comedians by Fred Van Lente

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

N or M? by Agatha Christie

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

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You’ve probably heard of this one already. Woman takes the regional train to and from work every day and watches for a couple who live on a house backing the tracks. She likes to make up stories about what they’re doing every day. One day she sees the wife kissing a man who’s not her husband. Because her previous marriage ended due to infidelity, the main character goes to confront the wife, whom she does not know, but her alcoholism intervenes and she blacks out […]

Paula Hawkins third novel is her best one yet.

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

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Daniel Sutherland is found viciously murdered aboard his houseboat on the dock of a London canal by Miriam, an older woman on a neighboring boat. A troubled young woman, Laura, was seen leaving the docks covered in blood, and the police quickly zero in on her as the suspect, despite the fact they cannot find the murder weapon. Soon the people that best knew Daniel are pulled into orbit with one another and long-simmering resentment will erupt into a conflagration.  Motive is the question that […]

So. Much. Drowning.

Into The Water by Paula Hawkins

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I felt just ok about Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, so I expected similar results from this book. I think my low expectations helped me enjoy this more than I thought I would (not MUCH more, but still, every little bit counts?). Into The Water is set in a small town in England that is home to the Drowning Pool, a section of river that has seen the deaths of many women over the years – some by murder, some by suicide. The story […]

Despite all my rage I am still just the girl on the train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

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It’s honestly refreshing to have a book where the main character has actual flaws instead of cutesy “I’m such a klutz!” “I’m just too ambitious!” pseudoflaws. Rachel, our hero, is a straight out alcoholic. And half of the mystery she’s committed herself to solving involves putting her fractured memories of the night of the crime together, a task made more difficult by the wine induced blackout that evening. Rachel isn’t just a heavy drinker, she has an out and out problem, and Hawkins does an […]

Shoulder Shrug – Into the Water

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I greatly enjoyed Paula Hawkins’ debut novel, “Girl on the Train.” I read it as an audiobook and found it compelling and interesting from beginning to end. A twisty thriller with unreliable narrators and shifting truths that kept you on your toes. I was thus excited to embark on her second novel, “Into the Water” but did not have the same experience and won’t be recommending this one to others. A sleepy English town is rocked by the “suicide” by water of one of its […]

Review roundup! Female-centric thillers

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I badly need to catch up with writing reviews, but don’t really have the inclination to write long and individual reviews for books that were mostly ‘meh’. I sometimes pick up thrillers when I need a break from fantasy, and this review covers several that I’ve read since the early summer, in order that I read them. In some cases I have to cast my mind back rather a long way–and some definitely made an impression more than others. Most of these I read pretty […]



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