Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“On her First Holy Communion, Majella could remember sitting in the chapel for a long time, with Jesus stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her trying to peel him off with her tongue. Somehow she knew picking him off with her finger was all wrong.”

Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen

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Majella is the queen of coping; she has developed a system of avoiding eye contact, she gladly relies on years-long joke exchanges orchestrated by her customers and coworkers, and she is clear about people explaining idioms and small-town customs to her as a needed relief. She is also coping with the world around her; her uncle “died for the cause”, her IRA-adjacent father disappeared years ago, her mother is lost in a haze of whiskey, and her beloved grandmother has recently been beaten to death. […]

It Runs in the Family

Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman

Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer

The Lion's Den by Anthony Marra

Zenith Man by Jennifer Haigh

The Weddings by Alexander Chee

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Another year, another onslaught of bits and bobs to keep me from sitting down and giving my undivided attention to a hefty book! Everything My Mother Taught Me 3/5 Dang it Alice Hoffman, misadventures at lighthouses are my catnip! Lighthouse Keeper was my dream job when I was younger- big thanks to Ahab’s Wife- it’s a  lonesome and perilous career but also pretty cool! I was a huge Hoffman fan in high school, but I drifted away over the last 15 years or so. I dipped […]

Not all rainbows in these celebrity memoirs

We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) by Rosie Perez

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I read We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union for my last in-person Mocha Girls Read meeting in March. This memoir is a collection of moments that are mostly linear with some flashbacks. Unlike Becoming, the chapters are not as detailed about her early childhood. The book is all about keeping it real and reflecting on her past with levity. We learn about her family and how she at a young age she looked after herself. With no supervision, Gabrielle got up to some […]

The Perks of No Longer Being a Teenager

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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Oh, this book. I treated it like a sacred text back in high school. I gave it regular re-reads through the beginning of college, but then I let it fade into the background. It used to be my “Fall” book (despite it covering an entire school year) and while I continued to think back on fondly, I started to replace that nostalgia drip with the character-created playlists from within the book. It’s been years since I last picked it up, but Ride’s “Vapour Trail” creeps […]

cbr12bingo – No Money!

Bright and Dangerous Objects by Anneliese Mackintosh

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Full disclosure: I received this ARC from the Tin House Galley Club The atmosphere here in Bright and Dangerous Objects is heavy. It’s laden down with creeping grief, sudden disappointment and the growing dread of continuing to exist while things crash apart around you. Sensitive tattoo-artist boyfriends, fancy craft beer,  and getaways in stone cottages cannot save you from yourself. Solvig has inherited her mother’s furious brain. She has inherited her father’s tend towards self destruction. She has inherited a hunk of malachite that is supposed to […]



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