Helloooo CBR 12! Excited to post my first review of the year, and I started with a bit of a bookend. My last read for CBR 11 was my (first ever) read of the Diary of Anne Frank, which was a long time coming, and a great book to read. So, I found it appropriate to start with George Takei’s “They Called Us Enemy” which is George Takei’s graphic novel memoir of growing up in internment in the American concentration camps during World War II. […]
In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
This is it. The last review of my cannonball! And what a book I have chosen to go out on. A friend of mine, seeing on Goodreads that I was edging toward my reading goal for the year, reached out to me with some graphic novel suggestions that I could tackle quickly to get across the finish line. It was great to have her support, and her endorsement that graphic novels “do count” which, of course they do! One of her suggestions was the graphic […]
A light and fun read to round out the year
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
As I was looking for the last reads of my completed cannonball, only one more to go after this one (!!!) I wanted something light and fun to enjoy through the holiday season and I was positively delighted to discover I had this unread Sarah Addison Allen delight on my bookshelf. I discovered her early in her career and managed to go to a book event when I was living in Tennessee where I was the last attendee and remember being completely tongue-tied about it […]
A journey into the Alaskan wilderness
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
What a wild and harrowing ride this book was. This is my first Kristin Hannah novel and it certainly will not be my last. This was a big book to undertake for the tale end of my cannonball, but it is our January book club selection and though hefty, it is a book that you can fall into and devour. Ernt, Vietnam veteran, and his wife Cora have a deep, consuming toxic love, and their daughter Leni is caught between them. Ernt is a damaged […]
A cheerful story of immigration, loss, and family (Um, not really cheerful).
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
This book was a selection of my local library book club, I hadn’t heard of it and went into it knowing nothing about it; however, it was a National Book Award finalist in 2017 and received other accolades. I did go into it expecting something good and I was overall was left pleased but underwhelmed with the experience. Deming and his mother Polly live in New York city. She was born in rural China and has come to America to have a better life. When […]