Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An Important Middle Grade in Verse

Please Pay Attention by Jamie Sumner

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Gosh, Please Pay Attention is a book that hurts in the best way. Bea is a sixth-grader with cerebral palsy who is Buddies with Josie, a kindergartner with anxiety, and best friends with Rani. Max is the school nurse, and also her foster mom who gave her her name because Bea’s neonatal room was decorated with Peter Rabbit before Max brought her home. Bea loves to draw and even gets in trouble for drawing places she shouldn’t, like her bedroom wall and classroom desk. But […]

“Once upon a time long ago I lay in my crib at Sandy Point Farm while my father lay in the next room dying.”

Once Upon a Time: A True Story by Gloria Vanderbilt

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I had read about the custody case over Gloria Vanderbilt in the past, but it was long enough ago that I forgot most of the fine details and felt that I was entering the book with no real allegiances or opinions beyond feeling bad for a child caught up in it. I purchased this copy a while ago and then it sat on my shelf until my recent reading spree focused on mid century society gossip. Once Upon A Time: A True Story is a […]

The Original “Poor Little Rich Girl”

Million Dollar Baby by Philip Van Rensselaer

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I spent half of this book wondering if I’d read it before but enjoying it so much I dashed through it in about a day. It is very entertaining and readable, and you can understand why Barbara Hutton took on Philip as a companion. He is a fun narrator and gets across emotion and events very well. Million Dollar Baby is a biography of Barbara Hutton and a memoir the time that Van Rensselaer spent with her in the late 1950s. It is not at […]

It’s not too late to be in the year’s best

The Women by Kristin Hannah

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So there’s good news and bad news. Good news is, I loved this book. Bad new is that I had my top five already written up before I finished The Women, and now I have to rewrite it. It’s definitely worth the extra work though (although the book that got booted might disagree). The Women is set during the Vietnam war and follows the path of Frankie McGrath, who comes from an affluent family that proudly celebrated military service. Following the path her brother took, […]

This Week, In Irish Trauma Porn…

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The Gathering by Anne Enright

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To be fair, only half of this is Catholic trauma porn. One may wonder why Ireland, of all places, has spawned such a fabled literary heritage. Personally I think it’s their sly sense of humour, finely tuned after years of British occupation. Perhaps it’s the potatoes. Both of these books abundantly feature potatoes.  Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan) *** Bill Furlong is a coal merchant in a small town in Ireland in 1986. It’s nearly Christmas; the busiest time of the year for him. […]

Beautiful, harrowing and oh so sad

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

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CBR16 Bingo: Liberate (our protagonists are fighting in World War I to keep the world safe from the Germans) Official plot summary, because I finished this book in early April: It’s 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, […]



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