Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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So Now Get Up

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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Oh, Wolf Hall. So many great and beautiful moments. So many frustrating, stagnating moments. So easy to appreciate. So impossible to judge. Hilary Mantel writes dialogue with a breezy yet deep style. Her characters say a lot by saying so little. If I’m being too paradoxical, it’s because this is a book comfortable with paradox: the lowborn rising to high positions in Tudor England. It’s a stirring tale of politics and a cautionary one about the price of true reform. Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell is comfortable operating in vacuums of power. He sees an opportunity and he takes it, no matter what the […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:45 |

Did We Really Need that Character?

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

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I picked this up on a whim at a used book shop. The cover was nice and the first page was really intriguing. I got into it right away, and the story starts out with an incredibly compelling narrator, Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee escaping to England for asylum after a terrible event occurs in her village. As the story unfolds, however, the plot goes crazy-pants and we’re introduced to a second narrator, Sarah, a British magazine editor who met Little Bee through terrible circumstances on a vacation to a Nigerian resort. I will spare you the crazy-pants plot in […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/25/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:15 |

44 Days

The Damned United by David Peace

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In 1974 the defending champion Leeds United needed a new manager as their legendary coach Don Revie was leaving to take over the English national team. In a shocking move Leeds hired Brian Clough, an outspoken critic of Leeds and their style of play. After alienating the players, the fans, and his bosses, Clough was sacked after only 44 days. The Damned United is David Peace’s novelized version of this time period. Using artistic license to imagine Clough’s state of mind during this ordeal and frequently flashing back to Clough’s earlier life, Peace attempts to provide a comprehensive portrait. Though […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/19/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:9 |

Can You Keep a Secret – Not a secret, but not for me

Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella

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This book is outside of my usual favorite genres (post-apocalyptic, dystopian, thriller, non-fiction, speculative fiction, and the like) but I reached out to the Facebook hive mind for pre-wedding brain candy reads and this one was recommended by one, and endorsed by many, so I threw it into my suitcase. I haven’t read “Confessions of a Shopaholic” or seen the movie as it’s not the kind of material that appeals to me, but Kinsella’s book was a nice, albeit predictable cotton candy departure for me. Emma Corrigan is a normal girl, leading a ho-hum life, unsatisfying job, little direction, unable […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:13 |

True Journalist

Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

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Well I guess I know what a British James Ellroy would read like. The only other book I read of David Peace’s is his fun and hilarious soccer send-up The Damned Utd., which was the basis for a fun and hilarious soccer movie. I tried Red or Dead but found it’s repetition too cloying and it’s 600+ pages too daunting. Still, I think he’s a talented writer. It took me several tries to get into this one; I had to get used to his writing voice. But I’m glad I did because this is a wild noir. I love journalism fiction and conspiracy […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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3/12/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:27 |

Men Are Terrible and Cannot Be Trusted

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

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Ghost Wall is a story about Sylvie, a seventeen year old girl, dragged along on an Iron Age reenactment in northern England with her father, Bill. Bill’s enthusiasm for the Iron Age is a hobby; he isn’t traditionally educated in the subject, and jumps at the opportunity to join Professor Jim Slade and his students for what is essentially a two-week summer LARP. He brings his wife, Alison, and his daughter, Sylvie, along for the ride. It becomes obvious early in the novel that Bill regularly beats Alison and Sylvie, and that his abuse goes further than reenactment: he expects […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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2/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:1 |

Good installment

A Crown of Lights by Phil Rickman

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Phil Rickman writes women very well. Merrily is such a wonderfully drawn character, but she isn’t the only well written woman in the book.  Rickman writes women as people, and, correctly, does not have them think or describe the women in terms of their boobs.  Rickman is also aware of how differently society would see a woman in a situation as opposed to a man.  This is used wonderfully as Merrily’s backstory makes it to social media.  Merrily’s reaction to the problem is one that most women would have, as opposed to one that some men would think women have. […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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1/25/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:2 |

ooohhhh booyy is it not a love story

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

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This book was given to me as a parting gift when I left Yorkshire. I had been to Haworth to see the Brontë parsonage and I’d walked the moors behind the house and I had lived in and understood the sweet melodic dialect of West Yorkshire. All this lent the book a certain sweetness that the two horrible main characters did everything in their power to disrupt. I mean, I knew this wasn’t going to be a love story, but like ooohhhh booyy is it not a love story. “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "ooohhhh booyy is it not a love story"

1/24/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:3 |


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