Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Girl on the Boat

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

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I have been seeing this one all over the place but hadn’t really been interested as it seemed like a The Girl on the Train knockoff.  Although it has shades of Girl on the Train, I was pleasantly surprised. We meet our heroine, Lauren ‘Lo’ Blacklock, as she is being burgled in her London flat- she comes face to face with the thief who then locks her in her bedroom while he completes his crime and escapes.  Although she is thankful to have not been […]

Cannonball!

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

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I had an odd experience reading this book; the plot is just similar enough to Knives Out that I had a weird superimposition of the setting. Despite this being set in the United Kingdom, as soon as they set foot in Mrs. Westaway’s house, I just immediately pictured the home in Knives Out. I picked this because I wanted a light read, and apparently my brain just went on autopilot. Anyway, we find our heroine Harriet – called Hal (I like Ware well enough, but […]

Deja Vu

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

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Reading Ruth Ware’s debut novel, I had a creeping sensation of unease. Which, you know, makes sense in a whodunnit where we’re trying to establish who’s responsible for the murder committed on a weekend away in the woods. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the deja vu of realizing you’ve read something VERY similar.  I don’t think that Lucy Foley’s The Hunting Party rises to the level of plagiarism, but there are some striking resemblances. Sure, any mystery is going to […]

3 Star Thrillers

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

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(3 stars) An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena This was probably two and a half stars, but I’m rounding up. The story was decent but pretty predictable. An Unwanted Guest takes place in a small family-run inn on a night when the weather is so bad that all the guests are trapped inside. They lose power and the roads are unpassable. Unfortunately, that’s right around when people start dying. First, the beautiful engaged woman falls down the stairs. Everyone suspects her fiance until an author […]

I both love and can’t handle mysteries

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

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Confession time: I crave spoilers. Crave. Especially in any kind of mystery “oh my god what’s going to happen next” type book I just cannot help myself and I go spoiler-diving. My Google history is full of me looking for spoilers (and my fiance takes my phone when we watch mystery/thriller movies because I am 100% on the film’s Wikipedia page). So yes. I made it about a hundred pages in before I went trolling the internet for spoilers. I found them. Of course I found […]

Great Update to Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

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So this is probably my favorite Ruth Ware book that I have read. The other ones were missing key elements or just were not developed enough in my opinion. In “The Turn of the Key” Ware updates “The Turn of the Screw” to contemporary times. Instead of a governess, we have a live in nanny. Instead of two children, we end up having our governess deal with three. And it also takes a while for everything to be revealed. The main reason why I didn’t […]



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