Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Giant Rabbits, Foot Wounds, and Loose Ends

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

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Two young girls and their mother move to a neighborhood featuring a communal park after their father/husband commits a serious crime leaving their family home in ruins. The girls meet an eccentric group of children with an even more eccentric group of parents, a perverted grandpa called Puppy, and an old lady with a giant rabbit. Weirdness ensues. The story begins leading the reader to believe they will be consuming a page-turning murder mystery/thriller; however, this reader found herself struggling to push to the unsatisfying […]

Definitely watching out for more Lisa Jewell titles

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

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I misplaced this book halfway through reading it and I was SOOOO upset, because this was a page turner. Nothing is gonna be the Dublin Murder Squad books, but until Tana French starts writing as fast as I read, I’ve been desperate for something to scratch the mystery itch. Same with Liane Moriarty and her middle class Australian intrigue; I’ve been wanting something well written but still brisk and fun. This is kind of the perfect intersection of the two. So huzzah that this turned […]

Always fun to read a thriller while camping

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

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(3 stars) My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing Okay honestly, this book was batshit crazy. But I downloaded it for free from the library because I needed something on my e-reader that I could read after dark, and I finished the whole thing in one evening. It’s bonkers, and I did find the ending rather unsatisfying (which is why I only gave it three stars). But it also entertained the hell out of me for the few hours it took to read. “My name is […]

Too Many Coincidences and POVs

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

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So it took me a while to finish this one because the first part of the story drags. Jewell starts off with two POVs with the mother (Laurel) and days before Ellie’s disappearance. But then we get two additional POVs (no spoilers) and I just went grr. I also thought that Laurel was kind of a terrible mother. I can’t imagine what I would do if one of my kids went missing and was presumed dead. She just gets angry her husband is trying to […]

Love em and leave em until one dies

The Third Wife by Lisa Jewell

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Adrian’s third wife, Maya, dies by accident one night. She was wasted and fell into the path of a bus. While her death seems accidental, the fact she was uncharacteristically drunk at the time sticks in Adrian’s mind. About a year of mourning later, he decides that he must find a new owner for the cat Maya left behind and places ads around town. A mysterious woman shows up a couple times to meet the cat but ends up not taking the cat. Then the […]

Review roundup! Female-centric thillers

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I badly need to catch up with writing reviews, but don’t really have the inclination to write long and individual reviews for books that were mostly ‘meh’. I sometimes pick up thrillers when I need a break from fantasy, and this review covers several that I’ve read since the early summer, in order that I read them. In some cases I have to cast my mind back rather a long way–and some definitely made an impression more than others. Most of these I read pretty […]



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