Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

E. M. Forster, you absolute gem of a man!

Howards End by E. M. Forster

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CBR18 BINGO: Summer, because the tryst between Helen and Paul that starts the plot rolling happens in the summer Double BINGO – Across: Success, Justice, You, Wealth, Summer Down: One, Wheels, Summer, And, Repair After finishing E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, I had an urge to revisit Howards End, a novel I hadn’t read in close to 40 years.  It was a close race, but I do believe I enjoyed Howards End even more. (Note, this review contains some minor spoilers.) The story […]

I’m guessing Tidy doesn’t have a male editor….

When Grandma Burnt Her Bra by Samantha Tidy

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You know me, I like good humor.  Of course, offbeat humor is best. And when I find a book that is called When Grandma Burnt Her Bra and it is a picture book, you know I am all over that!  OMG, how did this one get past the censors? Samantha Tidy must have some gal-friends in high places! When the young granddaughter of the story and her grandmother start on the subject of women’s rights and feminism, watch out you dinosaurs! These women are loud […]

Of Lies and Men

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter

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On a balmy spring eve, eighteen year old Emily Vaughn zips herself into her prom dress with some difficulty, then walks over to her high school to confront the people she thought were her friends. It’s 1982 and Emily is about eight months pregnant. Reviled by her classmates, she is soon thrown out of the prom. Emily disappears on her way home; her dead body is found in a dumpster next morning.  Some forty years later, US Marshall Andrea Oliver, fresh off the academy, is […]

“The fact that they have families and parents . . . is why they shouldn’t do these things, not why we should forgive them.” #CBRBINGO – Uncannon

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

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I have had terrible luck with lit-fic so far this year, so it’s nice that my streak is finally broken. This book was great. Depressing, but great. And I never would have picked it up on my own except that it qualified nicely for the novel in translation category (non-European) for the Read Harder Challenge, and it was short! And very well regarded. So thanks, Read Harder! Doing your job. Kim Jiyoung is a young mother living in Korea. She quit her job in marketing […]

Your voice isn’t the only thing they can take away

Vox by Christina Dalcher

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So this book took me a while to read.  It was an audiobook, so I usually listened to it after dinner while taking my dog for a walk.  It took a while because it was almost painful to read.  It’s set in a dystopian future where all women have a bracelet with a word counter on their arms.  They’re only allowed 100 words per day.  If they go over their count, they get burned.  Literally. We get dropped into a family with one daughter and […]

Shocking that 19th century men didn’t like this novel!

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The Awakening is considered by many to be an American classic and a forerunner of modern feminist literature. Yet when it was published in 1899, it received more negative criticism than positive, leading author Kate Chopin to dedicate her talents to writing short stories exclusively for the remainder of her life. Given that most journalists and literary critics in the late 19th century were men, the chilly reception shouldn’t be surprising. The Awakening is about a married woman named Edna Pontellier who, while spending her summer on Grand […]



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