Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Don’t Let Your Midlife Crisis Ruin Your Children’s Lives

Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood

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When Suzanne’s parents tell her that their family is going to live on a boat and sail around the world, they sell it to her and everyone as the adventure of a lifetime. But the reality of it is much more grim, with constant instability and little care for the children’s education or futures. Talk about making your midlife crisis your children’s problem! Having seen an uptick of chatter online about parents gaming the homeschooling system to let their kids run wild, it was interesting […]

“Me! But nobody likes me best!”

A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeid

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CBR14Bingo: Holiday (lots of holidays in this book) Another clearly beloved British children’s classic that I missed as a kid. A Vicarage Family is about (shockingly) a vicar’s family. More specifically it follows Vicky, the stand-in for Streatfeild, as she grows up during the Edwardian era. Isobel is artistic, Louise is pretty, Dick is the baby, and their cousin John is smart, but Vicky is always getting in trouble and doesn’t excel at anything. Her own strong sense of being wronged lead to her constantly […]

The Shadows by Alex North

The Shadows by Alex North

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I read this book a month and a half ago, and it seems like a lot has happened since then… I cannot remember all the things I thought while reading this book, but I gave it 4 stars, so I must have liked it. This books follows a man named Paul who has returned to his hometown to care for his ailing mother. Being back home brings back memories of his friendship with some local boys – James, Charlie, and Billy. The latter two are […]

Definitely one of the oddest childhood memoirs I’ve read

Germs: A Memoir of Childhood by Richard Wollheim

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Bingo Square Rep But not what you think.  Let Wollheim explain. “. . . such was the hope, I would, in saying one thing after another after another after another, each with a grain more of truth to it than its predecessor, come to spill the beans: I might, if only the ear stayed steady, and that was another hope, find myself, with one broad archaic gesture, scattering the germs.” Wollheim was born in England between the two wars to a German Jewish theatrical producer […]

“I thought how great it would be if we could trade in Fudge for a nice cocker spaniel.”

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

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Okay people. I think the last three reviews I have written start with hand-wringing about being behind in reviews. This time is no different. Except for how I am determined, or should I say DETERMINED to get caught up. I have a twisted process in that I don’t like to keep reading if I haven’t reviewed, so now I’m in this twisted merry-go-round of I want to read, but I’m behind in reviews, but I’m more behind than I’ve been in a bit so it […]

“What if you have a child, and that child wishes with every bone in her body that she’d never been born?”

Breasts and Eggs by Meiko Kawakami

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The inside cover of Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs is extremely misleading. I don’t think I usually put a lot of faith in the short descriptions that live on the insides or backs of books, so I guess normally this wouldn’t have bothered me, but I received Breasts and Eggs as a gift and knew only one thing about it when I unwrapped it: the book had been featured on a very short list of recent stellar stories that contained asexual protagonists. So maybe that’s […]



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