Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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 […]

If you like sociopaths and unreliable narrators, then have I got a book for you!

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Amber wants nothing more than to live the way she thinks she deserves. She wants it all — wealth and jewels and real estate, with a rich handsome husband on her arm. In her mind, this dream life is owed to her, because her early life was one of poverty and despair. So just let her have this, ok? And it doesn’t matter if the house she wants has people living in it. Or if the man she wants is married to someone else. She […]

I’m late to the train.

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Another Cannonball favorite finally made its way up my TBR list, and I had mixed feelings. I honestly don’t know why any reviews anywhere ever would call this book fast-paced, because the pace was absolutely killing me for the first half. Nothing happened but cryptic allusions to secrets and Rachel’s alcoholism and depression. I hated it for a while. Every time I put it down I’d feel kind of sad and crappy about life for a few hours before I finally realized that Rachel’s miserable […]

Atmospheric, but no mystery

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I know I’m late to the party on this book, and that it was a Very Big Deal some time ago, but kind of like the Martian it took me a while to catch up. Frankly? Unlike the Martian, with this book I don’t think I actually missed much.

The Girl on the Train: got off one stop too early

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I’d heard (mostly) good things about Paula Hawkins’ thriller and was excited for a mystery to round out my year. (Only one book left to my half cannonball, and hopefully enough time to eek out a victory!). I chose to tackle this one as an audiobook, and it worked very well in this format, though I can’t give a completely enthusiastic report; Hawkins ran out of steam and the pay-off at the end fell flat. Each chapter jumps around to the perspective of the three […]

Okay, sure. Girl, Train, Murder. Fine.

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Okay, first of all, Rachel, the main character, is in her thirties. She’d a woman. She’s a WOMAN on the train. Second of all, uhm, sure, fine, I guess. The girl on the train is an easy read. Not much happens on the pages, the story is pretty straightforward even as Rachel blacks out and forgets large parts of it. But blackouts do not equal nuance. It’s impossible to miss anything. Everything that is lost in black outs or changes in point of view, are […]



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