Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

I read two books in a row called “Savage [Something]”

Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

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As a whole, I’m not as mad about true crime as many women are – though I’ve certainly been compelled by various stories over the years. Unpacking some of my childhood media memories (Tonya Harding, OJ Simpson, etc) led me to You’re Wrong About, and I also love Criminal – both because they pick interesting stories but offer a good mix. I can’t just do murder stories all the time. But I’ve been researching the genre for a project, and I heard Monroe quoted on […]

After an empire fails

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

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In an effort to meet people after moving to a new town, I have joined an abundance of book clubs. This novel was for the second one that I’m doing through the local independent bookstore, the Queer Lit book club. We met last week and it was such a fun time; I even ended up staying an hour past the meeting talking to some other participants about books and video games (the games was more of a “listening” section for me), especially Dragon Age, since […]

The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand

The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham

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My first Elin Hilderbrand novel. This sounds defensive, like “Don’t tell anyone I picked up a beach read.”  Well, to be an illogical book snob is to be human. I’m not advocating highbrow “capital L” literature, bloated dirges of atmosphere and no plot. For me thrillers and mysteries are respectable. Throw in as much historical fiction as you want. It’s time to admit that these genres are just as formulaic as a fun novel by a best-selling author marketed with a pastel book cover. In other […]

Supporting Women’s Wrongs

The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless

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  The Children of Gods and Fighting Men (the first book in Shauna Lawless’ Gael Song trilogy) has been on my TBR for a while now. I’ve gone on a bit of a historical/fae kick during January (I also recently finished Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel), so I figured this was a good time to read it. The book is a (mostly) true narrative of Irish history at the end of the 10th century, with some fantastical elements sprinkled in. I didn’t know […]

Threshold of Revelation

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner

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I was lucky enough to see Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America: Millennium Approaches on Broadway a long time ago. Reading the script now all these years later, I am surprised to find the written script gave me the shivers just like the live play did. Maybe because I have memories of the experience and have projected them onto the words. But there is no doubt that the play in all its forms is powerful. The subtitle of the play is “A Gay Fantasia on […]

OK Colonizer

Attacking Earth and Sun by Mathieu Belezi

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In 1827 the French consul got into an argument with the ruler of the Regency of Algiers. Three years later the French government invaded what we now know as Algeria; it took until 1847 for the country to officially become part of France, and there were isolated pockets of fighting and conflict that lasted until 1903. In other words, it was a nasty, bloody business. Somewhere in the middle of all this France decided it would be a great idea to send French folks to […]



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