Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I’m in the future, where you are too

Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura

by Leave a Comment

Kokoro is a lonely teenager who’s been bullied by classmates to the point of dropping out of school. She spends her days in her bedroom, afraid to leave the house, until one day, her bedroom mirror starts to glow. When she touches it, she’s pulled into a strange castle, along with 6 other teens. The castle is guarded by a girl in wolf mask who tells them there’s a hidden key, and whoever finds it will be granted one wish. The Wolf Queen, as they […]

The Outsiders

She Who Became the Sun: The Radiant Emperor Duology Book One by Shelley Parker-Chan

by 2 Comments

Beginning in 1340s China, She Who Became the Sun opens with a 10 year old girl, never named, living in utter poverty in a small village. She has already lost her mother and several siblings to starvation. The girl, her father and an older brother named Zhu are the only survivors. Zhu was meant to be sent to a monastery when he was old enough, and a fortune teller predicted greatness for him, but for the little girl he predicted, literally, nothing. Yet the girl […]

“I’m a tango dancer, you a-hole,” I snarled, and kicked him in the face.

Chaos Choreography: An Incryptid Novel (#5) by Seanan McGuire

by Leave a Comment

Verity Price and her ex-Covenant husband Dominic are back on the West Coast again and right back in the family business: cryptozoology.  Saving people from Cryptids (and more importantly, Cryptids from people), Verity figures her days of competitive ballroom dancing are over…aren’t they? But that’s before Verity gets the call from Dance or Die, the reality show she came in second on years ago, and realizes that she hasn’t quite put her alter-ego Valerie Pryor to bed yet. So she and Dominic are off to […]

Sometimes, a book cover promises cats and lies. This book, on the other hand, delivers in spades. SO many cats, guys.

Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett

by 1 Comment

4.5 stars Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book involving animals Monthly Keyword Challenge 26: Cat Official plot summary, because I finished this back in February, and my perimenopausal brain isn’t exactly helping here: Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life, and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for stray cats. Now it’s the shelter that needs a new home. And the only landlord who will rent a […]

Retelling of an Epic Hindu Poem

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

by Leave a Comment

I found this retelling of the epic Hindu poem The Ramayana quite engaging. Vaishnavi Patel is trying to explore what led to the actions Kaikeyi took in that poem by adding nuance and a feminist flair, with varying degrees of success. While I haven’t read the original, I looked up enough to know that Kaikeyi plays an important role but not a large one in the original story. In this version, we witness her childhood as the neglected princess among several princes who are more […]

The Immortals: A horse-girl’s dream (plus environmentalism, political intrigue, and meddling gods)

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

Wolf-Speaker by Tamora Pierce

Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce

The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce

by Leave a Comment

Now that I’ve finished re-reading Alanna, I’ve moved on to the second quartet in the Tortall universe. It’s mostly been a bedtime read, but I also did a move while reading this quartet, so it also served as a nice comfort read for awhile instead of picking up any of my other ongoing books that required more critical thinking. Overall, there were fewer problematic under/overtones in this series than The Song of the Lioness (with one notable exception). We get to skip right past having […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo