Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Nightmare Alley

Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham

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I had a dumb moment reading this book where I thought…hmmm, this reminds me of Bahktin’s concept of the carnivalesque. Which is pretty much the same as reading The Trial and thinking Hmmm, how Kafkaesque. The joke here is that this book begins us literally in describing a carnival. The opening of the novel really is this way. It’s like the opening of Carousel, where we’re getting a lot of information, told through multiple forms and voices, bringing us into the story slowly by really […]

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.'”

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

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I did not expect to love this book so much, but it really hit me pretty hard. I liked Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut just fine, it was fun, and I really liked Slaughterhouse-Five, but I didn’t connect to it emotionally like I did God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Near the beginning of the book, there’s a moment when Eliot Rosewater is thinking about Vonnegut’s stand-in writer character, Kilgore Trout, who is Eliot’s favorite author (see quote below, which also applies to sci-fi and fantasy […]

Susan, can you write better romantic heroes, please?

When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

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Sometimes I like Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and sometimes I don’t. Like, I REALLY don’t. Susan’s back with the Chicago Stars, the fictional NFL team she likes to write about. This time, Olivia, a famous soprano who performs arias all over the world, is thrown together with Tad Owns, a member of the Stars, to embark on an international tour to sell $3,000 watches. Much is made of Olivia’s penchant for overpacking, her prim and proper appearance, and her loathing of Tad. (Which is mentioned in […]

Get rid of Ryan and keep the dog

Talk Bookish To Me by Kate Bromley

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This… was not awesome. I mean, I guess it was okay, and I skimmed it over the course of a couple of days during a lovely bought of “awake-at-3am-itis,” but… well, let’s just say it was told in first person present, which I absolutely LOATHE. Kara’s best friend – whose name escapes me at the moment – is getting married next week. At the “pre-wedding party”, Kara discovers that one of the groomsmen is actually her first love, Ryan, the guy who broke her heart […]

Match.com meets Theranos but with less nefariousness and more (maybe? I don’t know) sex

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

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Last year (I think it was last year?), I read a book by Christina Lauren that involved the two romantic leads being the only two characters in the story who didn’t participate in the opening scene’s vomit-mania. It was actually pretty decent, despite the mass puking, and I knew the name sounded familiar when I downloaded The Soulmate Equation from the library, but I didn’t connect the two until I went to write my review. I’m not sure what the point here is, other than […]

I have a secret I want to share

Nour’s Secret Library by Wafa’ Tarnowska

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Nour’s Secret Library is a book that is about the power of books, the power of one person, the power of a community and how we can learn from each other instead of fighting. The emotional and chaotic images by Vali Mintzi show the ugly of war but also the hope people can find when looking. Wafa’ Tarnowska took a true event (children of Syria finding books and making a hidden library for anyone who wished to partake of books of many languages and subjects, […]



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