Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Meet the Plumbs

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

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My memory from the last few years is hazy but if I recall correctly, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s 2016 novel The Nest was one of the breakout hits of the literary year. I remember seeing it everywhere and hearing about its existence, even if I didn’t know the plot. A little research confirmed at least some of this: the book sold for 7-figures to a publishing house and there were like a billion (very available) copies at my local libraries. This no doubt was a hit with the […]

I’ve read scarier ghost stories for kids

The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

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Mrs. Winthrop is determined to get rid of her home. It is an old, Southern Tennessee beaut of a home filled with original wood stairs and rails, original furniture from when it was built way-back-when, filled with old family belongings that to the Music City Salvage team will be worth a fortune. After the patriarch of the family-run business purchases the home he sends in his team to gather the scrap: daughter Dahlia, drunk nephew Bobby, Bobby’s son Gabe, and unrelated worker Brad. They show […]

Being a teenager is hard enough without the threat of total annihilation looming on the horizon.

I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi

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Jesse, Cate, and Adeem are all just trying to survive- even before they catch wind of an alien planet’s message to earth: you will all be destroyed in seven days. Our main trio holds a treasure trove of teen torments between them: absent parents, the desire to be loved, the inability to accept care, the need to be anywhere other than where they are. Everyone is attempting to find someone who does not necessarily want to be found, and I was worried that we’d being […]

A Blended Family Drama Spanning Decades that Gets Bogged Down By It’s Numerous Characters

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

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This novel ended up on my to-read list after being recommended by our library’s website after I finished Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You. I really didn’t know what I was getting into though, to be honest, but I did assume that like Ng’s book, it would be some kind of personal family drama. That is certainly was, and this is a genre I usually quite like, but this time I find myself feeling a bit lukewarm about the whole endeavor. Commonwealth begins with […]

Shared Family Trauma

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

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Ask Again, Yes spans over four decades, and tells the story of two families, and how their lives have become tied together.  It starts when the two fathers are rookie cops together on the force, though even from this very beginning, they have very different personalities.  Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are both beginning their careers in the force in the early 1970s, both are about to get married and start families, and as a result, it is not a surprise that both soon find […]



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