Tracy

Knitter. Anosmic. Cat lover. Newlywed!

Tracy's Reviews:

Chrono-Displaced Persons

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

January 9, 2019 by Tracy 1 Comment

I have never liked time travel. Episodes of science fiction TV that deal with it tend to give me a headache because I can’t wrap my mind around it and start thinking in circles. But I loved this book. It’s been around for a while and also had a movie based on it, but for those who don’t know, it’s about Henry and Clare. Henry is an involuntary time traveler; he has no control over where or when he travels, although it typically seems to be to important people or events from his past and future. When he travels, he […]

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1/9/2019 | Tracy's CBR11 Review No:1 |

A Pair of Novels About Equestrians

Riding Lessons; Flying Changes by Sara Gruen

May 28, 2018 by Tracy Leave a Comment

The main character for both novels is Annemarie Zimmer. In Riding Lessons, she starts out as an 18-year-old equestrian who is an Olympic contender. Then she and her horse are in a horrific accident during a jumping event. It kills her horse and comes very close to paralyzing Annemarie. This all happens at the beginning of the book, and then it jumps forward 20 years. Annemarie has just lost her job, her husband has left her, she has a very difficult relationship with her teenage daughter, and then she finds out that her father has ALS. She and her daughter Eva […]

5/28/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:13 |

Memoir about Trauma, Shame, Food, and Body

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

May 20, 2018 by Tracy Leave a Comment

When she was 12 years old, Roxane Gay was gang-raped by a group of boys from school, one of whom was a boy she had sort of been dating and loved. After that, she set out to eat and eat until her body was a “fortress” that could protect her and couldn’t be hurt. This was interesting for me to read because of the multiple lenses through which I was viewing it. There was the psychologist part of me who had a sort of detached interest in noting the effects of Gay’s trauma, though also still being very saddened by […]

5/20/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:11 |

Novel Within a Novel

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

May 13, 2018 by Tracy 3 Comments

Since I started Cannonball Read, I’ve tended to think, to varying degrees, about what I might write in a review as I’ve read each book. I didn’t do that much with this one, which I think is a testament to how engrossing it was. The main narrative frame is from the perspective of Iris Griffen (née Chase), a widowed woman in her 80s who has a heart condition and is trying to document her life before she dies: “It’s a slow race now, between me and my heart, but I intend to get there first. Where is there? The end, […]

5/13/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:10 |

A Bible for Cat Training

The Trainable Cat: A Practical Guide to Making Life Happier for You and Your Cat by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis

April 14, 2018 by Tracy Leave a Comment

Cats are jerks. Don’t get me wrong – I have 3, they’re adorable, and I love them to pieces. Cats are rewarding pets, but there are definitely cat owners out there who would agree that it’s a good thing cats are cute because they can be obnoxious. I’m hoping this book will help with that. It’s phenomenal and wasn’t remotely dry, perhaps because I was thinking about how I could apply what I was reading to my own cats. I underlined a lot of the material and found it valuable and interesting right from the start, even in the introduction […]

4/14/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:9 |

Stories About Technology and Discovery

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

April 2, 2018 by Tracy Leave a Comment

The e-book version that I got from my library was actually titled Arrival, with the note that it had been previously published as Stories of Your Life, and I got it because I wanted to read the story that the movie Arrival was based on, so I’ll start with that one. It’s titled “Story of Your Life,” and it’s good. I think the movie is better, which I don’t usually think, but I also don’t usually see the movie before reading the book. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, so all I’ll say is that there are […]

4/2/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:8 |

Wonderfully Creative

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

March 25, 2018 by Tracy 2 Comments

I really enjoyed this book. Coming in at under 150 pages, it’s a quick read, which is good because I just wanted to keep going, especially once the characters were on their journey to Camazotz. I recalled reading this novel twice before, once in elementary school when I didn’t really “get” it, and I don’t recall how I viewed it upon my second reading, but this time I got it (although I’m still not sure just how much tesseracts make sense to me as used in this novel) and appreciated it. Many of you probably know the plot by now, […]

3/25/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:7 |

Dirk Gently Is at It Again . . . Sort of

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams

March 18, 2018 by Tracy Leave a Comment

This one started off much less confusingly (and weirdly) than the first book, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, though it didn’t necessarily end less confusingly. Part of the problem is that the ending seemed rushed, as though Adams were trying to get it done in a hurry, and he sacrificed quality and clarity to do so. Once again, the book doesn’t really seem to be about Dirk Gently, although he is a main character, and this time he doesn’t seem to do as much in terms of affecting the resolution. There are two mysteries that he is trying to solve. The first is […]

3/18/2018 Tracy's CBR10 Review No:6 |

janet snakehole on I don’t want to review this book.Loved this review. I like Rob Delaney's twitter, which does not necessarily mean I would enjoy a full book by him. I found this out...
janet snakehole on White Feminism: A NovelGood review! As a white feminist lady I was intrigued by this book but skeptical of its relevance. Your review confirmed pretty much what I...
Scootsa1000 on Just Because It’s Brief Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t PainfulA+ use of Jack Tripper.
Scootsa1000 on You, Sir, Are No Colin FirthI read this ages ago, maybe for CBR3. Hands down, the worst Austen-related book I’ve ever come across. Everyone was awful and the sex scenes...
emmalita on This is where we learn it’s not a good idea to throw your GF into a bottomless pitEmotional satisfaction and political outcomes rarely seem to go hand in hand. I guess I’ll stick to voting and protesting.