cancer

Just when you thought cancer couldn’t suck any more than it already does

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery by Barbara K. Lipska with Elaine McArdle

February 18, 2019 by KimMiE" 2 Comments

Barbara K. Lipska had already survived two encounters with the dreaded “C” disease when weird things started happening to her brain. In 2009 she fought off breast cancer, undergoing a mastectomy of her left breast, and then, in 2012, she defeated melanoma, or so she thought. That’s the trouble with cancer; you’re never really “cured.” There’s always the chance that it can metastasize somewhere else in your body. For Lipska, a neuroscientist who specializes in studying mental illness, the disease came roaring back in the most ironic of places: her brain. The first sign of trouble for Lipska, an unbelievably […]

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The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: My Tale of Madness and Recovery by Barbara K. Lipska with Elaine McArdle

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2/18/2019 | KimMiE"'s CBR11 Review No:7 |

Love can overcome any obstacle

Echo's Sister by Paul Moiser

August 20, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

This is my SHINY SHINY SHINY book While I really enjoyed Echo’s Sister by Paul Moiser, the writing is in a “debut author” style (meaning it can be a little “unsmooth” at times) even though this is his second book. It is also overly optimistic and “sweet” while dealing with a tough subject. With all that said, it is aimed perfectly at the audience of ages (high reader or concept understanding) 8 or 9-year-old up to about 10 years old. However, a slightly older reader (eleven and twelve) could get something out of it as well. Therefore, it is […]

8/20/2018 BlackRaven's CBR10 Review No:313 |

A Seemingly Moderate Take on Terminal Illness

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs

November 19, 2017 by ASKReviews Leave a Comment

Best for: People who enjoy memoirs such as When Breath Becomes Air. In a nutshell: Now-deceased writer Nina Riggs documents her illness from diagnosis onward. Line that sticks with me: “These are the things we all say at the end of book club now: ‘I love you.’ Of course we do. Why haven’t we been saying that all along?” Why I chose it: Memoir + death = A Lollygagger staple. Review: Author Nina Riggs gives us a gift with this book, in that it isn’t filled with terror and it isn’t overly optimistic. I’d imagine that both of those styles […]

11/19/2017 ASKReviews's CBR9 Review No:90 |

Finally, an unreliable narrator who isn’t horrible

Before I Go by Colleen Oakley

May 5, 2017 by ingres77 2 Comments

I’ve written fairly extensively about how much I dislike unreliable narrators, and how books written to damage the psyche are, I think, grotesque and antithetical to everything I want in a book. The narrator here is struggling through a fairly difficult time in her life, and therefore can’t always be relied on to objectively perceive her reality – but I think it’s handled in a way that is fair to the characters, and it’s done in service to the story, not as some cheap ploy to shock or titillate. Before I Go begins with kale. Daisy is out of kale […]

5/5/2017 ingres77's CBR9 Review No:36 |

Throwing a kitten out a window was only a warning shot.

Moonglow by Michael Chabon

April 29, 2017 by borisanne 2 Comments

Halfway through Moonglow, I caught myself with my hand over my mouth, trying to keep my breath inside my body because the prose was so exceptionally beautiful. I had my worries before reading this book. I have only recently discovered Chabon, and have only otherwise read The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which was so stunning that it made me want to punch something. There is a lot of hype surrounding Moonglow, and even I only got it by accident from the library on a strict, one week-only, no renewals loan, because it’s such a hot commodity. What if it’s a waste […]

4/29/2017 borisanne's CBR9 Review No:18 |

If you are different from a person everyone agrees is wonderful, it means you are somehow wrong.

One True Thing by Anna Quindlen

April 29, 2017 by borisanne Leave a Comment

This was a tough one, emotionally. One True Thing is the story of a brilliant young woman “with her whole life ahead of her” who is guilted by her controlling and emotionally-arrested father into leaving her life behind to come home and care for her dying mother. And it covers so much ground in a very gentle but sad way: gender roles, parenting, family dynamic, literature and poetry, agency, friendship, romance, and ultimately, euthanasia. At the very beginning of the story, Ellen tells us that she was at one time arrested for the wrongful death of her mother, who overdosed […]

4/29/2017 borisanne's CBR9 Review No:17 |

End of Watch

End of Watch by Stephen King

April 26, 2017 by Mim Leave a Comment

End of Watch. Once again, I’m sorry to say that there’s not much good to be said about this one. It’s a real downer, and I waited several weeks after I read it to write this review, because I didn’t want to ruin it for anyone. Problem is, I also don’t want to have to reread it, and unlike some other books, my head doesn’t want to hold on to it. My major issues were how irritating it was that King returned to drugging people to give them psychic powers (he did it in Firestarter, too, but Firestarter was a […]

4/26/2017 Mim's CBR9 Review No:7 |

When not reading plot synopses bites you in the ass

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness and Siobhan Dowd

March 8, 2017 by ingres77 2 Comments

I saw a book with a monster in the cover. I saw a book with “monster” in the title. I saw a book that was popular. And I never bothered to find out what it was about. “I should be more open”, I said. “Try new things,” I said. “Expand your horizons,” I said. Oh yeah. Read the kinds of books I never would have had I not joined this wonderful community. Which has been a largely successful modus operandi in my three years, here. Even when I’ve read terrible or uninteresting books, the act of reading different things has deepened […]

3/8/2017 ingres77's CBR9 Review No:15 |

Malin on I so wanted to love this. Alas, it was not to be.If I'm going to have any chance of reaching a Cannonball this year, I need to review EVERYTHING I read (re-reads not necessarily included).
Malin on I so wanted to love this. Alas, it was not to be.My review backlog is pretty big right now, but once I get through the ten reviews before it, I will be trying to get my...
Scootsa1000 on I so wanted to love this. Alas, it was not to be.I finished this one recently and was left with just a big “huh, that’s it?” I liked it ok, but really was expecting and wanting...
Bothari43 on Reviewing this makes ME feel like an alien.I love hearing that CBR has helped readers grow! And I think you're spot on with this review. A lot of Clarke's stuff has the...
Bothari43 on I love revisiting books at different times in my life. Perspective is so weird."Perspective is so weird." So true! Now I want to go reread some middle school favorites. It's always so heartbreaking when you figure out your...