Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Literary fiction that I actually liked

Flashlight by Susan Choi

June 22, 2025 by Ellesfena Leave a Comment

The Book: It’s kind of hard to say what Flashlight is about. The summary makes it sound almost like a mystery: Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach, and hours later, she is found soaking wet and half-drowned, and he is nowhere to be found and presumed drowned. But most of the book is less concerned with this mystery than with the complicated family dynamics at play between the four main characters. Louisa’s father, Serk, is Korean, although he was born in […]

Filed Under: Featured, Fiction, History Tagged With: family saga, Japan, North Korea, susan choi

Ellesfena's CBR17 Review No:4 · Genres: Featured, Fiction, History · Tags: family saga, Japan, North Korea, susan choi ·
· 0 Comments

When What You Think Is Real, Isn’t

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

December 17, 2020 by The Chancellor Leave a Comment

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi My rating: 3 of 5 stars Starting out in the world of a performing arts high school we follow two young people, Sarah and David, as they navigate teenage love and high school in the 80s. Their teacher is a former Broadway performer and treats them more as adults than teenagers (problematic at best). Suddenly there’s a break in this story and the perspective shifts to current day and the point of view of Karen, one of the classmates of […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: susan choi

The Chancellor's CBR12 Review No:26 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: susan choi ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Desperate for answers, I tore through this book – and then there were no answers.

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

April 22, 2020 by pineolliepple Leave a Comment

Desperate for answers, I pretty much blocked out the world to finish this book as fast as I could – and then there were no answers. Susan Choi as an author is a neutral higher power who knows what you want and then calmly chooses not to give it to you, leaving you spinning in place and trying dumbly to figure out what on earth just happened. “Think, use your brain, you’ve got this.” This makes it sound like I disliked the book. I did […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: contemporary fiction, Fiction, high school, susan choi

pineolliepple's CBR12 Review No:3 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: contemporary fiction, Fiction, high school, susan choi ·
· 0 Comments

Welcome to the funhouse

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

January 17, 2020 by chilejamie Leave a Comment

Others have and will review this better than I can, but what the heck, i’ll take a stab at it. This book seems to inspire either intense love or intense hate and not much in between based on the reviews at goodreads. However, it won lots of prizes and was on several “best of” lists, so i gave it a shot. And my final verdict? An impressive high wire act that is a chore to read. The author has finely crafted a work of metafiction, […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: high school, metafiction, susan choi, unreliable narrators

chilejamie's CBR12 Review No:4 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: high school, metafiction, susan choi, unreliable narrators ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Stick with it, trust me

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

January 9, 2020 by lowercasesee 1 Comment

I struggled with this book for really longer than I should have, but I am so so glad I stuck with it. At about the halfway point it reveals itself to be a Russian nesting doll of ideas and I don’t want to talk too much about it and give too much away, but yes, please, bear through the uncomfortableness of the first half to experience to awe of the second that lets you see the genius of the whole. Trust Exercise puts theater kids […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: susan choi

lowercasesee's CBR12 Review No:4 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: susan choi ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment
Trust Exercise Cover

*bell tolls* SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

December 11, 2019 by andtheIToldYouSos Leave a Comment

Trust Exercise punched me in the gut, kicked me while I was down, and still I could not leave it alone.  I was once an insufferable THEEEEAAAAATER kid, and the teens on display here made my blood curdle- out of immediate and inescapable recognition. I was a pretentious brat until far too recently (still pretentious, just too old to be a brat) and roiling guilt flowed through my veins throughout the entire book. I have been working diligently on keeping my ideas off of other […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: 2019, abuse of power, Award Winner, best of 2019, drama, Fiction, high school, National Book Award, Performing Arts, perspective, sex, Shame, susan choi

andtheIToldYouSos's CBR11 Review No:12 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: 2019, abuse of power, Award Winner, best of 2019, drama, Fiction, high school, National Book Award, Performing Arts, perspective, sex, Shame, susan choi ·
· 0 Comments
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