Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About cheerbrarian

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I am a born and bred southerner and transplant to the Midwest. I read because I NEED to (as a former English major, it's in the DNA) and because I'm possibly ignoring frigid temperatures. Until summer, and then I'll just be reading outside. I also enjoy cooking, witty banter, and cheese. All the cheese. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: ardaigle's Quick Questions interview.)

cheerbrarian's Reviews:

“A dilemma, my father used to say, is nothing but two bad options.”

One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley

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I started this book with minimal expectations, having never heard of the book or the author, and I can now say this book wasn’t for me. Overall it was paced too slow and the book was too long for me to find it enjoyable or gripping, but it wasn’t so bad that I stopped outright (plus, it was for a book club and I tend to see book club picks through to the end). The subject matter of this book is heavy and for me […]

“We didn’t call the police right away.”

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

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This book is the “One Book One Community” pick for my local library this year and is the story of a family frantically searching for their missing father, told from the perspective of his 20-year-old daughter, Mia. From the opening sentence, “We didn’t call the police right away” I was gripped with Kim’s novel and Mia’s storytelling. I found this book to be very readable and hard to put down, and specifically catered to my literary and personal interests. First of all, done well I […]

“It turned out that some crooked things looked even worse when straightened. Some tangled knots only made sense once unraveled.”

Wool by Hugh Howey

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I know it’s only January 20th so this is a bold claim, but Wool is going to be on my top 10 list of books I read in 2024. This novel started as a standalone short story “Holston,” but upon its publication and soaring popularity, Howey wrote four more stories that have now been bound together in this first volume. And it gripped me from page one through the very end. This is exactly the kind of book that I love to read in winter, […]

“My castle is very different from what I planned, but I would not alter it, though, like Jo, I don’t relinquish all my artistic hopes, or confine myslef to helping othr fulfil their dreams of beauty.”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

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I did not have reading Little Women on my Bingo card, and yet here I am. A friend mentioned offhandedly that she was watching the 90s film adaptation and two of us admitted (sheepishly) that we had never read the book (I know!) so a trio book club was born. I was surprised to remember I hadn’t read this book. (Heck, when I posted my Reel review of this book on Facebook, a classmate I haven’t talked to in years said they were surprised I hadn’t […]

“I’ve had my eyes taken from me twenty-three hours a day. The one hour I’m out of the hole is the worst of them all. I spend the fifty-nine minutes afraid to go back in.”

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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This book y’all. This. Book. THIS. BOOK. This one is in my top 5 for the year, easy; it’s an early contender for #1. I knew going into it that it was going to be a bumpy ride, having been warned by a few reader friends that it was intense, hard-to-read, and “the ending left me stunned, mouth opened, for five whole minutes.” And still, I was not prepared for Adjei-Brenyah’s literal and metaphorical jaw-dropping book. A few chapters in I asked said friends, “Ummm. […]

“When I can’t find a scintilla of hope here on earth, I can imagine there’s something out there that will help life make sense.”

Imperfect Lives by C.J. Washington

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New year, new book club selections! I had never heard of C.J. Washington or this book, but it was picked for my book club so away I went. This isn’t a book I would have naturally gravitated to, but as a beach book or in my case, something to read at the Korean spa, it was perfectly fine. I had to reread the first two chapters twice to get going, something about the way he was introducing the characters didn’t stick with me, but after […]



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