Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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.

 

Trigger warning. Also, spoilers.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

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I don’t consider myself particularly well-read. I’ve never read Faulkner. Only read The Great Gatsby last year (or the year before, I don’t remember). I’ve read Hemingway once, and didn’t particularly like The Old Man and the Sea. I’ve never read Austen, or Waugh, or Virginia Woolf, or Pynchon, or countless other important literary figures. But I’ve long flirted with the idea of being comfortable with books enjoyed by well-educated people with posh British accents who casually insert French into everyday conversation. (For the record, […]

Blancaflor and all the sh*t wives have to do

Blancaflor, The Hero with Secret Powers: ​A Folktale from Latin America by Nadja Spiegelman and Sergio García Sánchez

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Blancaflor is a folktale with Spanish and Latin American roots from a category of folktales called “Girl helps the hero flee.”  High John the Conqueror is an African-American version you may have read in Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly. In this type of folktale, a man ends up being captured by a devil or magician, and has to complete a series of impossible tasks. But the devil/magician’s daughter falls for the hero, and helps him complete the tasks and escape with his life. TOON […]

Do you remember the 21st night of September?

See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon

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“See You Yesterday” by Rachel Lynn Solomon is a fun, original take on the classic “Groundhog Day” narrative. The story follows Barrett Bloom, a college freshman who’s looking for a fresh start after an intense high school experience. However, things take a wild turn when she finds herself trapped in a time loop on the first day of school. Together with Miles, a fellow time-loop victim, she sets out to find a way out of the loop while navigating the ups and downs of their […]

More Lady Killers, Please

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

by 1 Comment

I am so excited about this book, y’all. I’ve been gushing about it in all my book-related chats since I started listening to it. I set it aside yesterday with about 80% finished because I wanted it to last just a little bit longer. It has been an exciting and fun escape during the awful end of summer break. A team of female assassins are set to retire and to celebrate, their employers “The Museum” have sent them on a fancy shmancy cruise. While sitting […]

OMG I love these old crime fighters

The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club #1) by Richard Osman

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So, this is another Audible book that my sister bought that I get to enjoy. Thankfully she bought all three, so I get to listen to them all! This is book one. The premise of this this book was totally new and refreshing to me. The closest parallel I can make is to the Netflix show “Only Murders in the Building.” It’s kind of a loose parallel though. Anyway, we get pulled in immediately as Elizabeth, an octogenarian asks her friend Joyce, a former nurse […]

such a delightfully odd book, definitely on my list of books to recommend in turn

Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

by 1 Comment

Cannonball Passport: a recommendation from Chris, spasibo How to explain this book, which was exactly what was promised on the back cover and yet hard to fully explain? It is historical fiction, with some characters plucked from the annals of the USSR and others constructed—not from whole cloth, but from several scraps who did exist (or who probably did). It’s a different take on the Soviet Union, painted not with satire but not with nostalgia/wistfulness either? I wonder how much would resonate with someone from […]



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