Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton

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When a scientist is murdered in the last outpost of humanity left in the world, the villagers must seek justice or all face death. I read Turton’s debut The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle several years ago, and while I enjoyed piecing together the mystery and the science fiction underpinnings of the story, I though the solution got too convoluted in the end. This book has a similar problem, but as the focus for much of the story is the science fiction setting and […]

Object Lessons

Blue Jeans by Carolyn Purnell

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Blue jeans are a practically universal garment, but their sheer ubiquity belies their relatively short history and the staggering path they took to hit the mainstream. Blue Jeans is a short non-fiction book from a series called Object Lessons, which dives into the histories of the everyday objects in our lives that we’re so used to that we hardly consider them in any depth. I certainly look at my blue jeans now with fresh eyes, which is entirely the point. The book is divided into […]

Blood – Thicker Than Water?

The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson

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Bel Price was in the backseat when her mother went missing, but because she was two years old, she doesn’t remember the answers everyone wants, and she’s finally made peace with it. But when Rachel reappears sixteen years later, it upends everything Bel knew. I haven’t read Holly Jackson’s wildly popular A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series yet, but I requested up this book on NetGalley for the rave reviews those received as much as for the intriguing premise of this story. Certainly the […]

Head Empty, Just Vibes

Sicilian Devil's Prisoner by Caitlin Crews

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After his entire family was murdered, Jovi has become nothing more than a weapon for his mafia boss uncle. But when sent out to assassinate Rux, the daughter of a criminal, he finds himself falling for her instead. This book really is classic Harlequin Presents, full of drama, danger, and glamorous lives and locales, except it leans in fully into the steaminess of the romance. Jovi and Rux are a fun pair to follow. Despite the darkness of the story, Rux’s narration was hilarious, and […]

Fake engagements, angst and lots of secrets and lies

In a Second by Kate Canterbary

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3.5 stars This was an ARC from the author. I am very grateful, but my opinions are my own. Audrey Saunders has not seen her former boyfriend, Jude Bellessi, since he showed up at the church, only moments before she was due to get married, to ask her to run away with him instead. Because of a whole host of reasons, Audrey couldn’t tell Jude why she was getting married, and why she broke up with him in the first place and moved across the […]

Everyday Jewish Lives Divided by Time

Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World by Jane Ziegelman

Matzah Ball Blues by Jennifer Wilck

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I did not mean to make it a Jewish double feature, but I just happened to read these books around the same time, and it was interesting to see the same traditions discussed in a historical context and then in an average middle-class family from New Jersey. Once There Was a Town by Jane Ziegelman – 3 stars After the Holocaust, since entire shtetls had been reduced to just a handful of survivors, people across continents came together to put together yizkor books to record […]



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