Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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*Not ALL Americans*

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

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I hate Americans. I hate the way they think they are (or ought to be) the greatest country in the world. I hate that they define Trump as the leader of the free world and I hate their self-righteousness as liberators of oppressed countries. Which is why I hate The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult. We start off with the blandest of bland protagonist, cookie-cutter pretty girl with a scar and a shameful past. She’s also a baker, because she wants to bake all night to hide herself away from the world (never mind that most bakers starts at four in […]

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7/3/2018 's CBR10 Review No:19 |

Not Any Great Things

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

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I’ve never read anything by Jodi Picoult. Her stuff always seemed a little cheesy to me. But, one of my book clubs is reading Small Great Things this month so I gave it a go. I was right. I hate read this in its entirety and you’ll enjoy my rambling, disconnected diatribe on why it sucked. Small Great Things is the story of Ruth Jefferson, a 40-something African-American nurse in New Haven, CT; she is a 20-year veteran of the L&D ward and quite good at her job. One day, she goes to treat newborn baby Davis Bauer and gets […]

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6/20/2018 's CBR10 Review No:23 |

Not-so Perfectly Matched

Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult

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Let’s just start off by saying that Jodi Picoult isn’t my favorite author, but sometimes she makes you think, and sometimes, she can put both sides of an argument on the table in a narrative form that can be somewhat entertaining.   Picoult is sort of a guilty pleasure for me, except I rarely enjoy it, and Perfect Match was no exception.  While it is meant to be a gripping and tense narrative about the explosion of lives after the molestation of a small boy in a small town and somewhat more importantly, the self-examination of a working mother after […]

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4/25/2017 's CBR9 Review No:6 |

Jodi Picoult’s racism book . . . I have thoughts.

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

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I’ve decided not to rate this book because my thoughts are so conflicted about it, but I do want to say some things. This is a book about a black nurse being prohibited from treating the newborn son of a white supremacist, and when the baby dies, he accuses her of murdering his son. I’ve never read a Jodi Picoult book before, because her books have always seemed like they were Issue Books, designed to be manipulative in a way that emphasizes the subject matter over the actual story and characters. That is Not My Thing. And really, after reading […]

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4/4/2017 's CBR9 Review No:30 |

Leaving Time

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

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Wow! While I was reading this book, I was trying to figure out what exactly happened ten years ago. When I got to the end, I was surprised by what happened, yet it still made sense with the story. Definitely not what I was expecting! In “leaving time” we follow the story of Jenna.  She is a thirteen year old girl living with her grandmother. She has a very good memory and her earliest memory is from when she is barely a year old. Jenna believes one reason that she has this memory is because it involves her mother, Alice.  Her […]

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3/11/2017 's CBR9 Review No:22 |

Jodi Picoult Does Racism

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

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Jodi Picoult is one of those authors I think of as “easy reading.”  Her books are written in a way where thing are pretty well laid out for the reader.  She does tackle topics that can be controversial or morally ambiguous but does it in a gentle way where she’s not alienating most readers.  I found out that my mom’s book club was reading this book and purchased a copy for her, and figured I would read it myself. The book is the story of Ruth Jefferson, a black Labor and Delivery nurse, who works in a hospital and loves […]

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2/4/2017 's CBR9 Review No:3 |

What Do We Owe Our Families?

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

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In one version of my future, I attend graduate school so I can get a PhD in Philosophy, focusing on biomedical ethics. I find the topic endlessly fascinating, and full of such interesting and open-ended questions. So I can’t believe that I waited this long to read this book. I’d really like to dive into the subject matter of the book, so if you’re planning on reading it and want to avoid all manner of spoilers, here’s my one sentence review: it’s good, it grapples with interesting issues, and the version on Audible is probably the first time I’ve really […]

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3/26/2014 's CBR6 Review No:15 |


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