Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the Yay for YA Discussion About YA Books Now  

About vega-table

CBR17 Participant
CBR18 Participant
CBR18 Levels
CBR18 Comments

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

vega-table's Reviews:

Nothing is more human than imagining the alien

First Contact: the Story of our Obsession with Aliens by Becky Ferreira

by 2 Comments

First Contact: the Story of our Obsession with Alien by Becky Ferreira doesn’t address the questions about aliens from outer space existing or visiting the earth. It’s about us caring so much about the answers and what we’ve done to get them. For about as long as humans have existed, we’ve yearned for aliens. People have always looked at the sky to figure stuff out. (How’s the weather? What time is it? Which way is north?) We also have lived with similar but different species like […]

A mess named Nana meets a less messy mess named Nana

Nana 25th Anniversary Edition vol 1 by Ai Yazawa

by 2 Comments

One night, a 20 year old girl named Nana gets on a train to move to Tokyo. She sits next to another 20 year old girl named Nana who is also moving to Tokyo. Despite the coincidences, they’re very different; one is a comphet flake (and I think a satanist) while the other is an ambitious musician who is absolutely going to get big because she’s that good. They talk the entire train ride and get along great and don’t plan on meeting again. But […]

Short story struggles are worth it

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Even Greater Mistakes by Charlie Jane Anders

by Leave a Comment

I am very bad at reading short story collections. Something in me says that if it’s in one volume, then it’s one story. So when the chapters don’t go together, I get confused even though I know they are independent stories and not actually chapters. But I like short stories, so I get through them by reading at least a few books between the stories. I got through two collections this year. In the preface to The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu says, […]

An enjoyable puff piece

Will Eisner: a Comics Biography by Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur

by Leave a Comment

Earlier this year when I finally read the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a book about two fictional comic book legends, I realized I knew very little about Will Eisner, a very real comic legend. There were many times when I thought, is that thing in Kavalier and Clay about Will Eisner? I bet that’s an Eisner reference. I should know more about Will Eisner. So I found Will Eisner: a Comics Biography by Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur. I had a few questions […]

Anything is political if you care about it

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism by Kristen R. Ghodsee

by Leave a Comment

I thought Kristen R. Ghodsee’s Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism would be an indulgent 200 page feminist think piece where I could feel good about myself for already thinking the things Ghodsee says. It was better than that. To oversimplify, the book is about the rights women lost when the Eastern Bloc fell. Does that mean 20th century East European state socialism was some feminist human rights utopia? Of course not. I’m happy Ghodsee dropped (most of) the defensiveness early on – she […]

A magic high stakes funeral

Psychopomp and Circumstance by Eden Royce

by 2 Comments

The protagonist of Eden Royce’s Psychopomp and Circumstance, Phaedra St. Margaret is known as Phee, which challenged the way I pronounced ‘Phaedra’ in my head. The St. Margarets are a rich Reconstruction era rich Black family. They are made of overbearing mother, passive father, and wilful daughter – Phee – who unwillingly goes to Get a Husband bustle dress dance parties. At the old age of 21, Phee is ready to stop going to these parties, stop getting courted, and go do her own thing, […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo