Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Decent story, could have used another edit

The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

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I’ve read some excellent historical fiction recently featuring strong female leads, and this novel had the potential to join those ranks. It’s certainly very popular on Goodreads, with many readers noting how it made them cry, so I feel rather like a grinch giving this a mild, three-star review, just on the positive side of a thumbs up. The story has potential and does feature interesting characters. Nevertheless, I was let down by the execution. The novel alternates between two timelines. In pre-World War II Poland, […]

I love the smell of colonialism in the morning

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

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I was so disappointed in the last two books I read that I decided to shift gears and read something more “weighty.” I’d been missing beautiful writing and thought-provoking content, so I turned to my TBR list for ideas and came up with Heart of Darkness, a short novel that I’d always meant to read but had never gotten around to. It’s an important English novella published in 1899 by a Polish author about a British steamboat captain sailing through Africa; 80 years later it […]

They say thriller; I say crap

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

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I didn’t appreciate how much this novel truly annoyed me until I was bemoaning to a friend how it spent some 25 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. Thinking I didn’t like it because it is basically fluff (which it is), she said, “Well, look how long Da Vinci Code was on the bestseller list,” and I shot back, “Da Vinci Code was a masterpiece next to this book!” And I stand by that. I may have issues with The Da Vinci Code, but […]

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

The Professor and the Parson by Adam Sisman

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The dust jacket for The Professor and the Parson is adorned with compelling praise: “utterly mad and wholly delightful,” “lively,” “a roller coaster ride,” “delicious,” “weirdly compelling.” This book is, in fact, none of these things. The only quote I can kind of get on board with is from British magazine Emerald Street, which calls it “astonishing,” as I find it astonishing that people could have enjoyed this book. Reading this was such a slog, the title of this review reflects what I heard in […]

Women in science, 19th century edition

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

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I’m on a roll with splendid historical fiction featuring strong female characters. What I didn’t know until I was about half-way through this novel is that Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures is based on real women in science about whom I’d never heard. I suppose I should say “real women on the outskirts of science” because, as females, they were barred from having a meaningful place in scientific discussions in 19th century England. Mary Anning, now recognized as the finder of the first known ichthyosaur skeleton […]



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