Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

The Problem With Compliance

The Memory Policy by Yoko Ogawa

by Leave a Comment

The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa is a quiet, spare, literary tale of dystopia. While I can’t say I enjoyed reading this book, I can say that I think it’s very good. I found the book hard to enjoy for a couple of reasons. One, because it was very strange concept. Our unnamed narrator and her unnamed friends and family live on an unnamed island where things disappear. But, they disappear from people’s memories first, and then the people of the island get rid of the […]

Farmer Needs a Better Wife

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

by Leave a Comment

This is the most “celebrity book club” book I’ve ever read, and I mean that in an absolutely derogatory way. Broken Country starts with a minor domestic tragedy on a farm owned by Frank and Beth, our narrator. As Frank and his brother Jimmy are dealing with their sheep, a neighbor’s dog runs into their enclosure and starts wildly attacking the lambs. Jimmy shoots the dog in order to save the flock, just as the neighbor and his young son catch up to their animal. […]

Like Father, Like Son

John of John by Douglas Stuart

by Leave a Comment

The two Johns in the title of Douglas Stuart’s new novel refer to a father and son. The son is our main protagonist, John-Calum Macleod, thankfully referred to as Cal in the text to avoid confusion. Cal is a recent graduate from art school in Edinburgh who, unable to get a job due to an economic downturn, has been crashing on friends’ couches or relying on the occasional hook-up for shelter. One day his father, John, insists that Cal return home to take over the […]

Diary of a Mad Tradwife

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

by 2 Comments

First and foremost, we must give credit where credit is due. Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear has a premise that must have other authors fuming with jealousy. Her protagonist, Natalie Heller Mills, is a housewife and mother on a remote ranch who posts “tradwife” content on social media, pretending to be the ideal American mother while playing down the fact that she has two nannies and a lot of family money from her in-laws to help. One day, she wakes up in what feels like an alternate […]

To Be Young, Bewildered, and Black

The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy

by Leave a Comment

Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry, whose famous aphorism popped into my head more than once while I was reading The Wilderness.  Flournoy has given us a portrait of young Black women’s struggle to make meaning, starting in their twenties and progressing to middle age. These women are, indeed, gifted in many ways, but it doesn’t spare them the journey we all take from youth to maturity. Their Blackness means the challenges are different, and sometimes greater. “Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness” by mypubliclands is licensed under CC BY […]

Gossip, Judgement and Destruction – Read this Book

Good People by Patmeena Sabit

by Leave a Comment

Are we not all outsiders to another person’s life?   Mesmerizing Debut Novel  The novel’s unique structure lacks traditional chapters, paragraphs or narrator. Instead there are 1-2 page personal accounts, giving a 360 degree view of the leadup and the aftermath of one family’s tragedy. I had read about one-third of the book before even learning how somebody died but yet still did not know who had died. There are dozens of unreliable narrators with differing degrees of closeness. Sympathetic words mask superiority, scorn, prejudice […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo