Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


A Well Written Family Memoir That Didn’t Click For Me

She Left Me the Gun: My Mother's Life Before Me by Emma Brockers

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CBRBingo14: Shadow (the family history is a shadow over the writer's life) Sometimes you read a very well reviewed, technically well written, and well researched book and find the narrator annoying, and that's what happened here for me. She Left Me the Gun is a memoir about Brockes researching … [Read more]

's CBR14 Review No:90 · Genres: Biography/Memoir · Tags: , , , , ·

“Buddy Rich once told me that he was the loneliest man in the universe.”

The Torment of Buddy Rich: A Biography by John Minahan

Traps, The Drum Wonder: The Life of Buddy Rich by Mel Torme

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CBR14Bingo: Minds (I read both of these as I continued my personal psychological study of Buddy Rich's mind) Buddy Rich is arguably the best drummer to ever live. I was first introduced to his work about a year ago when he was mentioned in a biography of Frank Sinatra I was reading; the two of … [Read more]

's CBR14 Review No:89 · Genres: Biography/Memoir · Tags: , , , , , , ·

“We are headed toward the unknown, and we have no choice but to sit quietly in our hard seats and let ourselves be taken there.”

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

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This was a book club read, and not one I probably would have picked up on my own. Told in two timelines, we have two main POV characters: Molly Ayer, a 17 year old foster kid who is months away from aging out of the system. Molly is tough, and guarded, and like many foster kids, has been bounced … [Read more]

's CBR14 Review No:59 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: ·

The sword fighting is more interesting than the romance but not the point

Fence: Disarmed by Sarah Rees Brennan

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Bingo 20: Star I think I mostly like the comics better; the novels for Fence, including Fence: Disarmed, get too wrapped up in the personal drama. At least Fence: Disarmed fits the star square; part of the premise of the whole series is that Nicholas, the new(est) kid at King’s Row boarding … [Read more]

's CBR14 Review No:72 · Genres: Romance, Sports, Young Adult · Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ·

Satisfying But Not Ridiculous

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie by Bella Mackie

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Best for: People who like a real good revenge story, but also something a little different. In a nutshell: Bella Mackie is picking off her family, one by one. The twist? Most of them don’t even know she’s related to them. Worth quoting: “Tell me if the person I’ve fallen in love with seems … [Read more]

's CBR14 Review No:41 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: ·

Gruesome and Grotesque but also Wow!

The Wolf and the Watchman: 1793: A Novel by Niklas Natt och Dag

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Cannonball! I think I was only able to finish this novel, which really is extraordinary, by cheating on it with The House in the Cerulean Sea. I tend to be “monolibrous” — I word I am coining to mean one who does not start a new novel until having finished the one they’re already reading. The Wolf … [Read more]

's CBR14 Review No:52 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: , , , , , , , ·


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