Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“Why do I have to be nice when most of the men aren’t?” (double Bingo)

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Nowhere Bingo 25: A book about sport CBR17 Bingo: Play (tennis) Official plot summary (finished the book in August): Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Grand Slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her […]

“Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create.”

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

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CBR17 Bingo: Review – I first came across Caitlin Doughty and her books through numerous reviewers on Goodreads. Caitlin Doughty had been long fascinated with death, but when she started working at a crematory, she soon found herself more interested in the question of why death in America has become so distant from the general public. I am maybe not the right audience for Doughty’s message about the loss of intimacy and ritual in the American way of death. I am a Hindu, and we […]

“A poem was pinned under Hoshiar’s picture of young Duleep: “I have been thrown into a far-flung place, had everything, all that I once cherished, my Kingdoms and my very life taken from me. I am now in a foreign place, so far from my people. So far from my homeland.”

The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence by Anita Anand

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A Indian freedom fighter waited more than two decades to exact revenge for the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre which was ordered by the British Raj – but the story is more complicated and less cinematic than it has been often depicted since. At the start of this book, the author notes that as the descendent of Indians, she had to set aside her natural aversion to the British Raj and admiration for Udham Singh to tell the story in as unbiased a way as she could. […]

“Why do you want my voice?” “Because I’m a sassy sea witch and I’m gonna keep it in a nautilus necklace, then use it to steal your man from right under your nose”

Can't Escape Love by Alyssa Cole

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3.5 stars CBR17 Pie Challenge: Inclusion CBR17 Bingo: Borrow (read through Libby, since I don’t actually own the book) Regina “Reggie” Hobbs is working hard to make her nerdy website, Girls with Glasses, a success, and prove to her over-protective parents that she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself, even if she’s in a wheelchair. She loves the work, she loves her very capable team, but lately, she’s been struggling with insomnia, and the only thing that seems to soothe her to sleep is […]

“Every war is a war against the child.”

The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear

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CBR17 Bingo: White – Behold, the cover. Also, a bonus! The title. Elinor is a veteran of two world wars and a trained killer, but all she wants now is to retreat into a peaceful, solitary existence in the English countryside. But when a violent past comes back to haunt her neighbors, she cannot help but become drawn in. I’m sure I’ll eventually get around to checking out Winspear’s long-running Maisie Dobbs series, but in the meanwhile I figured I’d pick up the standalone The […]

“You are the queen. You are the queen that Antoinette wanted to be . . .”

Antoinette's Sister by Diana Giovinazzo

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CBR17 Bingo: Black – Behold, the cover. Though her tragic sister Marie Antoinette is better known today, Maria Carolina Charlotte, the queen of Naples, ruled with better success but faced her own share of troubles and tribulations in her years on the throne. The thing with historical fiction is that the story can live or die by the events it’s based on, especially when it follows the life of a historical figure. Luckily, Charlotte is an interesting main character. Though her attitudes toward the monarchy […]



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