Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


I Really Need to Find a Trivia Team

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

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This is the kind of book I wanted and expected when I picked up Matchmaking for Beginners. This was sweet and charming, and absolutely perfect for the moment. Nina never knew her dad and her mother is a world traveling photographer. Nina, on the other hand, is perfectly happy with a relatively contained life and uses books as her escape from reality. She rents a guest house which is perfectly arranged for her needs, has a cat, trivia team and book clubs, and works at […]

Disappointing Look at Where Some Characters Are Four Years Later

The Summer Guests by Mary Alice Monroe

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So if this book had just been a follow-up to the Beach House series it would have worked much better. Instead Monroe takes on horses in this one and a bunch of characters that either didn’t make an impression on me, or ones that I ended up not caring for. My favorite parts of this book was a look into Cara Rutledge’s life since the last book in the Beach House series. That said, I am still disappointed we didn’t hear more about her brother, […]

What Kind of Girl…

What Kind of Girl by Alyssa Sheinmel

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Trigger warning: Abuse, self-harm, bulimia    Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.  I think this book did a very good job of showcasing how domestic violence can occur with teens. The last time I recall having a big discussion about this was when that Lifeftime movie starring Fred Savage and Candace Cameron called “No One Would Tell” that followed a young couple in love, but the boy in questions starts abusing the girlfriend. That […]

Great Look at What Makes a Family

The Family Gift by Cathy Kelly

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So the newest by Cathy Kelly really hit home. I thought she did a great job with Freya and Freya’s inner voice, Mildred. I also thought at times Freya was acting so unreasonable and I am glad that the book didn’t hide away from how she was behaving at times. I also am glad that not everything ends up happily ever after with several real life events in Freya’s life. I think with contemporary romances authors often want to make everyone be happy and in […]

Book Felt Up and Down While Reading

What I Remember Most by Cathy Lamb

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Trigger warning: Depicts incidents of physical abuse of a child So this one was my least favorite out of my Cathy Lamb reading spree. I think the problem is that the main character (Grenadine) doesn’t even sound similar to the headstrong girl and then young adult we hear about via CPS reports and then court proceedings. I think that Lamb didn’t think that through enough when she set this up. She wanted I think to have a book about a wife in hiding from her […]

Dragged Too Much

The Language of Sisters by Cathy Lamb

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Trigger warning: References to rape So this was just okay to me. I think the biggest reason why I couldn’t give it more than 3 stars was that the whole big just got so bogged down in the Russia plot, the sister dealing with a serial killer case (yep) and then the heroine’s constant repetitions to herself to keep a secret that I just didn’t care in the end about any of the characters after a while. There were some bright spots, but a couple […]



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