Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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What is Addiction?

Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes

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I definitely liked “Rachel’s Holiday” a lot more than “Watermelon.” Maybe because this one more expressly shows the flaws in the Walsh family matriarch and father. Also, I still disliked Helen in this one too. Anna seems mostly harmless and cares. We also get to see/hear more about Maggie(one of the 5 sisters). I felt sorry for Rachel who is in the midst of addiction and doesn’t even want to admit what has been going on with her. And unlike with Claire in the last […]

Watermelon or Doormat? You Decide

Watermelon by Marian Keyes

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So I have all of the Walsh Family books in paperback. I haven’t read them in years, but decided to take the first two for a whirl this weekend. And now I wonder if I read this years ago and liked Claire or what? Cause Claire drives me a bit insane in this book. And when you read about how she changes over the course of the series, she ends up being the Walsh sister I dislike the most (tied with Helen and her book, […]

Zombie

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

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When Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries died, some people said “Dreams” or “Linger” was the band’s best song. But for many people, myself include, it was “Zombie”, the song about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It isn’t that the U2 songs about it are bad – “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” is powerful – but “Zombie” is so rare that powerful doesn’t even begin to describe it. It is the sense of horrible lose and pain. And you can’t help but think of that song why reading […]

Small Misunderstandings and Major Desillusions

Broken Harbour by Tana French

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Primarily, reviews are about preference: did I like this book? Was it good? Usually, the two converge; what is or what isn’t good is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. Occasionally, though, these two interlinked questions separate themselves. So what do you do when a book is very good, but you’re not sure you liked it? Experienced detective Michael “Scorcher” Kennedy is called to investigate an unusually grisly crime scene: at a half-finished housing development – abandoned during the financial crisis – a […]

Psycho Killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est?

In the Woods by Tana French

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Detective novels are a difficult concept to grasp, at some level. Why do we purposely seek out the sort of thing – violence, grisly murders, sex crimes, blood and viscera – we would do anything to avoid in real life? Then there are the tropes of the genre itself that work both for and against it, from the hyperconfident, competent yet over-empathic medical examiner to the tortured detective from a broken home and, more tellingly, the killer’s psychopathy. The majority of all murders are crimes […]

Our House, in the Middle of our Heath

The Likeness by Tana French

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I used to share a house with nine other people. They were cool people, all nine of them, but it was still far from perfect. I lacked a sense of privacy, even with my own room. I prefer going about things on my own. I can only imagine what it must have been like to spend every night in forceful merriment. In that sense, I tip my hat in the direction of the main character of The Likeness. Detective Cassandra “Cassie” Maddox receives a phone […]



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