Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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This state, this place, is like no other.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

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CBR11 BINGO: Far and Away (BINGO! Remix square to Reading the TBR square) This book has been repeatedly recommended to me via various online trickery. On the surface it seems like something that I would like: a book set in the wilds of Alaska. I dig nature. I like reading books where the pioneer spirit triumphs against all odds because I would die 3 days into that sort of thing and because I was borderline obsessed with Holly Hobbie and Little House on the Prairie when I was little. […]

Way too long for only one note

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

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I went to see if any of you lovely people had reviewed this book yet and instead turned up the fact that this is the same author who wrote The Nightingale, another book I was sour on. Things are making sense now. I’d forgotten all about that book and I’m not too pleased to be reminded. The Great Alone is better, but not by much. So much like The Nightingale, this is a book about terrible things happening to good people in a world without gray areas. And it […]

A Nazi is a Nazi is a Nazi

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I absolutely hate reading books about war because they upset me so much. I usually end up angry and crying.  Or angry and with a headache because I’m trying not to cry.  Basically, it all just upsets the crap out of me and I don’t like it. The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah, is no exception. I didn’t think it would be and although it was on my To-Read list, I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to reading it if it wasn’t selected by my book […]

NightinFail

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Spoilers in this review. This book made me tired. I confess, I do not get what everyone sees in The Nightingale. I feel like because it is set in WWII/the Holocaust, and we know that terrible things happened, this book had ALL OF THE TERRIBLE THINGS and we just accept that EVERY TERRIBLE THING happened to the characters because, of course, it was a time of terrible things. But it was too much; it was simply not believable to me after a point. But I’m […]

A story of untold heroes

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For the most part, you know what you’re getting when you read a book that takes place during World War II and is set in a location that was occupied by Germany. Even if you find a book or movie that tells an inspirational or uplifting story within that backdrop, it’s always delivered with the requisite edge of horror. How could it not? There is no story to tell from that period in human history that isn’t tainted by the atrocity. I’m not sure if […]

“In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are”

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I received several recommendations for The Nightingale and it was a great novel. Unfortunately I spent the entire time thinking it read like the first half of The Girl You Left Behind was fleshed out and made a bit more violent. It’s 1940s France- you have two sisters, a husband at war, German soldiers billeting at the pretty French girl’s home etc. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, Isabelle and Vianne, during Germany’s occupancy of France. Vianne married young and adores her husband; […]



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