Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

About Blingle Bells

CBR 8
CBR  9
CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant

Bio mom to a wild-haired five-year-old spitfire, foster mom to a three-year-old hooligan. Wife to a nurse. I spend my days tripping over dogs and putting out fires.

Blingle Bells's Reviews:

There’s a reason my “permission to DNF” system exists.

November 29, 2017 by Blingle Bells 1 Comment

An ISTJ through and through, I have some rules for myself and books. Sort of a flow chart type of deal. If it ends up on my Goodreads to-read list for some reason (intriguing CBR review, loved another of the author’s books so much I added their entire catalog to the list, it looked interesting at a bookstore, recommendation from my Granny), it will be checked out from the library (if you think I don’t have a system for randomizing which one’s up next, you’ve […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: allie larkin, Fiction, life swap, why can't i be you

Blingle Bells's CBR9 Review No:39 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: allie larkin, Fiction, life swap, why can't i be you ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

She was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.

November 18, 2017 by Blingle Bells Leave a Comment

Is it me, or is obsessive compulsive disorder having a bit of a moment? It could be me. I struggled with symptoms for 15 years without saying a word to anyone, not knowing it had a name. I’d heard of OCD, but just the pop culture version – obsessive hand-washing, obsessive cleanliness, and I didn’t have either of those problems. I finally realized that unbreakable routines, magical thinking, intrusive thoughts, motor tics, needing to do things an unusual number of times until they feel “right” […]

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Depression, mental illness, neil hilborn, OCD, poetry, suicide

Blingle Bells's CBR9 Review No:38 · Genres: Poetry · Tags: Depression, mental illness, neil hilborn, OCD, poetry, suicide ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

We developed a coldness inside us that still has not thawed.

November 17, 2017 by Blingle Bells Leave a Comment

This was such a beautifully researched work of fiction, it almost feels wrong not to categorize it as a biography. The book can’t be discussed without discussing its use of the first person plural, as in “Some of us read this book. Some of us only looked at it. Some of us never even heard of it.” It’s an unusual choice, and I could certainly see where it could get old. It’s a very slim book and for me, it was just starting to show some […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Internment camps, japanese women, Julie Otsuka, Marriage, The Buddha in the Attic, World War 2

Blingle Bells's CBR9 Review No:37 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Internment camps, japanese women, Julie Otsuka, Marriage, The Buddha in the Attic, World War 2 ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

“People abandoned one another constantly without performing the courtesy of of actually disappearing.”

November 17, 2017 by Blingle Bells 1 Comment

This book passed the rarest of tests: I often bring a book somewhere in case I have a wait or a gap of time and have a chance to read. I’ve done it since childhood, but the habit doesn’t really make sense anymore. I have an almost 3 year old who needs constantly, never-ending attention, intervention, corralling, chasing, and supervision. On the rare occasions that I do actually have a second in public, it’s 100,000,000x easier to just browse Facebook on my phone or something. […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Cynthia d'Aprix Sweeney, dysfunction, families, Fiction, inheritances, siblings

Blingle Bells's CBR9 Review No:36 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Cynthia d'Aprix Sweeney, dysfunction, families, Fiction, inheritances, siblings ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

Goodreads confirms that it is NOT just me.

November 12, 2017 by Blingle Bells Leave a Comment

Ugh. This book was so disappointing. First of all, I freaking love Bunmi Latidan, so I had high hopes despite the fact that I almost always disappointed by “Confessions of a…” books. They’re never what I want them to be. They’re always unsatisfying. Having read a non-fiction humor book by Latidan (and having loved it) and being aware of her hilarious online presence, I was expecting way more. What I got was a half-baked novel about a new mom who isn’t coping with her life and has […]

Filed Under: Comedy/Humor, Fiction Tagged With: bunmi lad, moms, Parenting, social media

Blingle Bells's CBR9 Review No:35 · Genres: Comedy/Humor, Fiction · Tags: bunmi lad, moms, Parenting, social media ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

The strangeness detracts from the usefulness.

November 12, 2017 by Blingle Bells 1 Comment

So. KonMari. I think most of us are at least passingly familiar with it, since the word is a verb now, as in “I KonMari’d so thoroughly last weekend, I donated my husband to Goodwill.” I have some thoughts. The first is that the basic philosophy behind the method – don’t keep anything in your home that doesn’t spark joy – is slightly flawed but extremely useful. She touches on it many times, but I still found the “rules” a little murky on things that […]

Filed Under: Non-Fiction Tagged With: cleaning, konmari, marie kondo, Organization, Self-help

Blingle Bells's CBR9 Review No:34 · Genres: Non-Fiction · Tags: cleaning, konmari, marie kondo, Organization, Self-help ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment
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