Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Grifter and the Heiress

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown

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The goodreads description of this book uses phrases like “scam of a lifetime” “page turner” and “dazzling, twisty, mesmerizing.” My experience of this book was…quite different. Nina is the only child of a con-woman mother. Though determined to make a straight living, her mother’s recurring illness has pushed her to the wrong side of the law: stealing antiques from the rich and selling them on the black market. Vanessa is an heiress without much smarts or ambition, “self made” as an Instagram Influencer. When Nina […]

“When you’re documenting everything you do, you stop living life for yourself and start living it as a performance for others. You’re never in the actual moment, just the response to the moment.”

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown

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Two wildly different women–one a grifter, the other an heiress–are brought together by the scam of a lifetime… This book tells the story of two women from very different backgrounds.  Nina has learned to make a living by playing the con game along with her boyfriend, Lachlan.  They make a comfortable living, but her mother is sick and there’s big medical bills to pay.  Things start to unravel, and the police come knocking on her door so Nina decides to disappear for awhile.  She and […]

Your ignorance is their power

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown

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The whole “you never really know someone” trope seems to be prevalent in a lot of popular fiction. I tend to blame “Gone Girl” because after I read that book I quickly became knee deep in similar books. Not all have been as well written or have successfully navigated the twisty turns which are the nature of this particular beast, but they can generally make for a good read. This book falls into that category, but it’s a little less psychological thriller and a little […]

“Life is more complicated than that, there are endless shades of gray that comprise a human being.”

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown

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My fifth year as a Cannonballer comes to a close with Janelle Brown’s Watch Me Disappear which centers on Jonathan Flannigan and his daughter, Olive, as they approach the first anniversary of the disappearance and presumed death of matriarch Billie Flannigan.  As Jonathan struggles to make ends meet without the second income of his wife and the delay in the insurance payout because Billie’s body was never recovered Olive begins to have visions that her mother is still alive and wanting to be found. I […]



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