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Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About octothorp

CBR  9
CBR10 participant
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CBR12 participant

I buy books faster than I can read them.

octothorp's Reviews:

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> Articles by: octothorp

The title pretty much gives you the tone

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

December 16, 2020 by octothorp 1 Comment

This book was remarkable for nailing a lot of being a teenager in a way that felt authentic to me, and that’s always refreshing. (I remember liking Harold and Maude before **SPOILER ALERT FOR A MOVIE THAT’S PUSHING FIFTY BUT YOU SHOULD STILL ABSOLUTELY SEE SO THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING ** Maude announces she’s taken a lethal dose of pills to commit suicide, and Bud Cort waits a beat long enough for me to lament that movies never show characters reacting like a real […]

Filed Under: Comedy/Humor, Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: Jesse Andrews

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:141 · Genres: Comedy/Humor, Fiction, Young Adult · Tags: Jesse Andrews ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

Hard to digest through no fault of the book

Gulp by Mary Roach

December 16, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I’m a luddite where books are concerned. I have a kindle solely because the spousalthorp got lovingly irritated with me on our Hawaii honeymoon when I read all the books I had packed and we had to go the furthest away from our hotel on the island to the only bookstore, and THEN pack all the books to take with us. They took up a suitcase on their own. I begrudginly concede he may have had a point. That said, I accidentally bought Gulp on […]

Filed Under: Health, Non-Fiction Tagged With: Mary Roach

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:140 · Genres: Health, Non-Fiction · Tags: Mary Roach ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Somewhere beyond the sea, cement shoes are waiting for me

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

December 16, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

This might be the first book in a while that I’ve bought from Goodwill that was worth the dollar I paid for it. Manhattan Beach is one of those books that fits together like puzzle pieces; there’s nothing extraneous in this story even if it doesn’t necessarily feel densely plotted. But the themes of fidelity, self-sufficiency, and generational passage resonate quietly in the background.  No character or quirk is wasted. Anna, our protagonist is deeply connected to her father, and drawn in young adulthood to […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Jennifer Egan

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:139 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Jennifer Egan ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

I don’t feel anything

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

December 16, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I was really, really, really hesitant to start this book. I am an anxious person by nature. There’s not a single phobia I have, I’ll move your spiders and snakes out of the way and go on all the roller coasters or in any confined space, no problem. But uncertainty? That turns me into a plague demon. No one likes Anxiety Octothorp, including Octothorp.  So even though this book has been recommended to me a dozen times over years, it was a solid year between […]

Filed Under: Non-Fiction Tagged With: Gavin De Becker

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:138 · Genres: Non-Fiction · Tags: Gavin De Becker ·
· 0 Comments

We can rebuild it, we have the technology

Smarter, Better, Faster by Charles Duhigg

December 16, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

When I complain about accidentally buying books that are ostensibly behavioral economics books that turn out to be business books, Charles Duhigg is what I’m usually hoping for. Not everything has to be an academic marvel, and like many of his ilk, Duhigg owes a large debt to Malcolm Gladwell for getting people interested in this type of book in the first place, but he always puts out a readable, organized, and interesting read. That said, this book was slightly less cohesive than The Power […]

Filed Under: Non-Fiction Tagged With: Charles Duhigg

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:137 · Genres: Non-Fiction · Tags: Charles Duhigg ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Rudderless

Spineless by Juli Berwald

December 16, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

It’s strange how often I find commonalities in the unrelated books I end up reading. I’m gonna review The Gift of Fear here in a bit, and there’s a bit in the last quarter of the book where De Becker writes about creating the MOSAIC tool for the FBI. As I read that I was thinking “didn’t he just talk about this” before I realized another book had a chapter about MOSAIC being used to find a kidnapping victim. Well, I bought this months before […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: Juli Berwald

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:136 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: Juli Berwald ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • MsWas on I was right to kidnap this book.That is a hilarious and inventive way to give that book. I will have to keep that in mind.
  • Emmalita on I was right to kidnap this book.Ok, but your gift giving game is excellent!
  • Emmalita on OK, I Need to Talk About These BooksThere are some books that are addictive even when they make us feel bad about ourselves after reading them. I can see how these books...
  • Malin on “One doesn’t need magic if one knows enough stories.”I really want to read this, I'm just worried that it being set in a fictional version of Norway is going to push some peeve...
  • Michellers66 on I was right to kidnap this book.I am not familiar with Benjamin Stevenson and delighted to try one of his books, think I will start with Either Side of Midnight per...
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