Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Oh, shit I just realized I could have used this for the ‘snake’ BINGO square, but I’m already committed to a less literal and more satisfying usage of it later.

From Bad to Cursed (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #2) by Lana Harper

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Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley books for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. I liked this even better than the first one. I actually think what I like most about this series doesn’t really have anything to do with the featured romances. I just like this world, and I like that Lana Harper is creating a fictional place that is not just full of eccentric townspeople and coziness, as one expects from a small town romance series, but also continues to […]

When Good is Evil and Evil even worse

The Subtle Knife The Graphic Novel by Philip Pullman

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cbr14bingo Snake  Level two Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass is a dark read and The Subtle Knife is even darker. Therefore, when either is in a graphic novel format, you are not only reading the dark you are seeing the dark. In all its nasty glory. The theme of religion becomes more center stage, and the violence of all worlds comes to a bloody ending (and start and middle) in this adaptation by Stephane Melchior. The Subtle Knife is not an easy read, and the […]

Frat Boys and Mean Girls, Gilded Age Edition

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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CBR BINGO 14: Scandal, because heroine Lily Bart is undone by scandals The House of Mirth has been on my list since I first fell in love with The Age of Innocence a quarter of a century ago. Nobody writes the glamour and treachery of Old New York as deliciously as Edith Wharton. I’ve been putting off writing this review because I wasn’t sure how I felt about the novel. I definitely prefer it to Ethan Frome, but it falls short of my favorite Wharton. Yet as time […]

The Curious Incident of the Convoluted Plot

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

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My thoughts on this book are… messy. On one hand, it is refreshing to see a book narrated entirely by a character with ASD. On the other hand, Haddon did not research prior to writing the book, saying “imagination trumps research.” Plus, the novel doesn’t even commit to the diagnosis. There exist many undiagnosed kids and adults, but it felt peculiar in these particular circumstances that Christopher, our narrator, never even has the possibility floated. On one hand, what Christopher puts up on the regular, such as […]

Why do you take all the life out of life? Why do you kill all the beauty?

The Collector by John Fowles

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CBR Bingo: Minds I remember GP saying that collectors are the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn’t really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline—and me. But of course, he is right. They are anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything. I have had John Fowles’ The Collector in my library for a number of years. I recently read that it was one of the first modern psychological thrillers, so it seemed like a good match for the “Minds” category. […]

“Phoenix-like, he flamed against the cloudless sky, looking down upon our miniature school world and all the golden fields of Fairacre.”

Village School by Miss Read

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CBR14Bingo: Cozy My mom had the complete set of these when I was a kid and I’d read them and feel very grown up. All I remembered about the book as an adult was a feeling of coziness and warmth, hence the bingo square. I was struck a few weeks ago with the urge to revisit these and see if my opinion had changed, so I picked up the first book and it was a good quick palate cleanser read after the longer commitment that […]



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