Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

About Pooja

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Ardent reader of pretty much anything, including the backs of shampoo bottles. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Pooja's Quick Questions interview.)

Pooja's Reviews:

Enterprising Women on Shadowy Paths

Forbidden Fruit: The Secret, Scandalous History of Contraception and Abortion by Jessica Cale

The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge

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Forbidden Fruit: The Secret, Scandalous History of Contraception and Abortion by Jessica Cale – 3.5 stars CBR18 Bingo: You – As a woman living in the United States, the history and the laws surrounding contraception and abortion are very important to me. Though lawmakers today would have you believe that contraception and abortion are only recent inventions, in fact they have a long history. With the recent attacks on access to abortion and contraception in the United States, it is somewhat reassuring to learn about how […]

While You Were Sleeping, I Ate Mortadella

Love You, Mean It by Jilly Gagnon

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CBR18 Bingo: Middle – This is a three star book which induced nothing stronger than middle-of-the-road feelings in me. After giving up her dreams to be a costume designer, Ellie is in danger of losing her family deli business when a major competitor is expected to come to town. But due to a workplace accident, temporary amnesia, and a fake engagement, she might be able to save everything – if only she doesn’t fall for her fake fiance first. I am from Massachusetts, so I […]

“It is a fact that it takes experience before one can realize what is a catastrophe and what is not. Children have little faculty of distinguishing between disaster and the ordinary course of their lives.”

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

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CBR18 Bingo: Summer – The book is set in the heat of Jamaica and the Caribbean Sea, where there is an endless summer. After a hurricane wrecks their home, the Bas-Thornton children and their neighbors, the Fernandez children, are sent off on a ship to England. When they are intercepted by pirates, their lives take an abrupt turn – but whether it is the children or the pirates who will cause the most harm remains to be seen. The cover image for the edition of A […]

The Opposite of Idle Hands

With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories by Nicole Nehrig

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CBR18 Bingo: Craft – This book is all about a women’s history of various textile crafts, including knitting, sewing, and embroidery. Throughout history in many cultures, art forms such as knitting, sewing, and embroidery were overlooked as women’s work, but they have also been a way for them to explore their intellectual capacities, seek economic independence, create community, process traumas, and convey messages of self-expression and political protest. I picked up crocheting some years ago, having taught myself through watching YouTube videos and reading articles. […]

“Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.”

Soulless by Gail Carriger

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CBR18 Bingo: And – This book’s got a mashup of genres – historical AND fantasy AND mystery AND steampunk AND romance. Alexia Tarabotti, who has a big nose, a dead Italian father, and no soul, finds herself embroiled in supernatural intrigues when werewolves and vampires start disappearing from London. I read this book (and practically all of Carriger’s Parasolverse) years and years ago, though my memory is pretty vague on almost all of it, so I got to enjoy the twists and turns in this […]

Murder on the New Frontier

Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution by Katherine Grandjean

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CBR18 Bingo: Map – We follow the Harp brothers’ rampage across maps of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi – and the brothers’ troubles started with land ownership disputes. On the heels of the American Revolution, Wiley and Micajah Harp went on a violent rampage across Tennessee and Kentucky, but while their crimes may have seemed inexplicable to their contemporaries, they may be tied to the dark realities of the newly promised American Dream. I had never heard of the story of the Harps before, and I knew […]



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