Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

About vega-table

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Seattle area hermit, staying in with my video games, books, cats, and beer. Living the dream.

vega-table's Reviews:

William Shakespeare lives up to own reputation

Henry VI, Part 3 by William Shakespeare

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Cbr18 Bingo – Clown: it’s about royal succession. I started Requiem of the Rose King by Aya Kanno, knowing it was inspired by Shakespeare’s histories and knowing I have a bad habit of abandoning books to do background research. Henry VI, Part 3 is the end of the Henry VI trilogy, and it drops you into the storm with a lot of characters giving a lot of exposition, which is that Henry (Lancaster) is the king and Richard (York) thinks he should be king and […]

With Joe Montanga as Fat Billy

Thinner by Stephen King; Richard Bachman

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Cbr18 Bingo – Wheels from all the cars in the book, including the one that the protagonist used to kill an old woman. By accident. A recent conversation encouraged me to try Thinner by Stephen King, written as Richard Bachman. The first time I found the story, I recognized it. Not because the story had permeated pop culture by the time I got to it, but because my grandmother used to tell me about the books she read. But she told them as if they […]

If these books have anything in common, it’s that women don’t need men to take care of them

Chopping Spree by Angela Sylvaine

The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu

The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson

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Cbr18 Bingo – Season: these books were my prizes for giving to Locus Magazine during their fundraising season. And I’m posting this review during the season for horror books. Chopping Spree by Angela Sylvaine, the cheerful goth – my expectations were very low for this mall slasher, a sub-genre I didn’t know existed. The novella follows Penny through one night as she uncovers the conspiracy and mystery of her small town and its mall, which seems to survive on 80s nostalgia in the era of […]

Why is this guy the worst villain in manga?

Nana 25th Anniversary Edition, vols 2-5 by Ai Yazawa

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Cbr18 Bingo – You. You could meet a Takumi or someone hurt by one. You probably have. The first volume of Nana by Ai Yazawa sets up the (platonic?) love story between two roommates named Nana. The young women have nothing in common but their name, age, and mutual devotion. It’s a sweet friendship that destroys the line between playing house and genuine romance. And then it all goes to hell in the subsequent four volumes. One of the Nanas (I’ll call her Punk Nana) […]

Shipwrecks are the perfect metaphor for when boats crash

Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific by Coll Thrush

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Cbr18 Bingo – Map: the book includes maps of the area. It talks about mapping colonialism narratives. And it’s about people who definitely used maps on the ships. Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific by Coll Thrush is about an area in the Pacific Northwest where thousands of boats have wrecked because of weather and geography conditions. But the book isn’t about climate, it’s about people. With colonialism comes ships. And with ships, come shipwrecks. Thrush writes about indigenous people being blamed […]

You know how the story ends

The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda

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Cbr18 Bingo – Wealth: It portrays graphic depictions of the events and people who caused the French revolution. The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda is usually the story of Marie Antoinette. As the story progressed, her bodyguard Oscar went from the deuteragonist to co-protagonist to protagonist. The reader is expected to know Marie Antoinette’s story ends with execution and the French Revolution. If you didn’t know, it tells you. We see her grow up as the queen of France. She gambles, has kids, and […]



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