Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Both influential and overlooked

Suzanne: The Jazz Age Goddess of Tennis by Tom Humberstone

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CBR15Passport Own While I was on a short vacation, I finished a fictional novel of a little-known black dancer of the 1840s, William Henry Lane, or Master Juba. And I guess I was in the mood for stories of real, but not necessarily extremely famous people, because then I started Suzanne: The Jazz Age Goddess of Tennis. Which is a memoir of Suzanne Lenglen, a French female tennis player. She was known, at the time worldwide, but she was not necessarily known for her tennis […]

“Falling in love is really quite simple. You want to know the secret? It’s the same thing we are doing about life every single day. Forget there’s an ending.”

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Reading, or listening to, the Taylor Jenkins Reid book “Daisy Jones and the Six” was one of my favorite reads of 2020; I still herald it whenever someone is looking for an audiobook, or a book, to completely fall into. Reid has the ability to write fiction so realistically that you forget that what you are reading isn’t the most engaging memoir of all time, but fiction. That was true about Daisy Jones and it’s true about this book. In Carrie Soto, Reid has rewritten […]

Lots and lots and lots and lots of tennis. But also maybe some murder?

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

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I asked my sister if she read this book, because we both love Liane Moriarty. Her answer was “Ugh, the tennis one?”. Yes dear readers, this is the tennis one. If there are 10,000 words in this book (it’s long, so I’m sure there are way more), 7,500 of them are related to tennis. It didn’t really bother me, but apparently it bothered my sister! It’s funny, and I know I’ve said this before, but Liane Moriarty is the only author I seem to enjoy […]

My first five-star TJR.

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC. It has not affected the content of my review. Oh, hey, look at that. Five stars. I think no one is more surprised about that rating than me after slowly making my way through this over the past two and a half months (this was written in August). But really, I was only slow because I didn’t expect to get this ARC, so I was reading it in between other books when I had time. But […]

The Best is Back

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Read this as part of CBR14bingo: question. I wanted to know who Carrie Soto is and what she is coming back from. Later, I wanted another question answered… I was at a bookstore about a month ago when I heard two people gabbing about Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new book, Carrie Soto Is Back. One began with, “I just finished the book…” and instead of the platitudes I expected, she continued “and I hated it. The lead character was terrible there was nothing else to go on after […]

Quickest, tallest, most fearless athlete

Althea Gibson: The Story of Tennis’ Fleet-of-Foot Girl by Megan Reid

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I knew of Althea Gibson but did not know much (if anything) about her. In Althea Gibson: The Story of Tennis’ Fleet-of-Foot Girl, Megan Reid uses highlights of Gibson’s life to tell her story. Gibson was not only a female pioneer but a black female pioneer as well. What you might know is that she had many firsts in tennis (winning Wimbledon as the first black, male or female, person; winning in doubles with a Jewish woman at Wimbledon) but also in golf as well. […]



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