Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

We care too much, or not enough

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

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It feels weird putting these two in the same review, but there you have it. I’ve been struck by the dreaded reading slump.  The Plot (Jean Hanff Korelitz) ** The plot of The Plot: author Jacob is struggling. His first novel made a modest impact, but didn’t sell well despite positive reviews. His second novel went ignored entirely. To make ends meet, Jacob teaches writing to a group of wannabes and one of them tells him the plot of a novel he is planning to […]

“For the one you love? Anything. You unmake the world and build a new one. You do anything to give them what they need.”

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

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4.5 stars CBR17 Bingo: G (A book title starting with G)   After months of online research, Alice Scott has tracked down the reclusive former tabloid darling Margaret Ives and hopes to persuade the woman to let Alice write her biography. Imagine the unpleasant surprise for Alice when it turns out that Margaret might not want to tell her life’s story at all, and she basically wants to ‘audition’ Alice and another writer for the next month, before she makes up her mind. That other […]

“Last week I considered going jogging in flip-flops just to remind myself how sex sounds.”

The True Love Experience by Christina Lauren

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StoryGraph Easy Reading Challenge 25: A book with two authors Felicity “Fizzy” Chen loves her life and career as a romance writer. The problem is that she’s suffering from a bad case of writers’ block, and when she’s asked about her personal life in interviews or author panels, it’s not like she can confess to never actually having been in love, right? A romance writer should surely have experienced romantic love at some point? With all of her friends happily coupled up, she’s also getting […]

“There’s something about a kiss that brings all the opposites together. The wanting and the getting. The longing and the having.”

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

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4.5 stars Emma Wheeler loves romantic comedies and has even won a contest with one of her screenplays. But with a father who needs around-the-clock care, and a sister to put through school, Emma’s career dreams had to take a backseat. Now her agent has an amazing job opportunity for her, to work with the screenwriter she admires the most in the world, Charlie Yates. However, there is no way she can do the job remotely, she will need to stay in LA for six […]

Agatha Christie, in the parlor, with poison

A Mind of Her Own: The Story of Mystery Writer Agatha Christie by Robyn McGrath

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I was never a “OMG AGATHA CHRISTIE IS THE BEST!” but have appreciated what I have read. There were a few things I knew about her style, such as she was not going to be an easy read for someone used to contemporary writing and she would have references not really “okay” for today’s mindset. But what I didn’t know was how she got to be considered one of the greatest writers of mystery ever. This picture book by Robyn McGrath does a fantastic job […]

A promising debut novel

The Write Escape by Charish Reid

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3.5 stars Nowhere Book Bingo: A book with a BIPOC author and main character CBR16 Sweet Books: Cozy In very short order, Antonia Harper has lost her job and discovered that her fiancée was cheating on her, very shortly before the wedding. The honeymoon was supposed to be in Ireland, and Antonia decides to travel there by herself. Her spiteful ex has cancelled their original reservations, but she rents a cottage to stay in instead. With nothing else to distract her, Antonia decides to make […]



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