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.

 

The Genealogy of Southern Cooking

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty

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This is a book that showcases my shortcomings as a reviewer. I really enjoyed listening to this book, but am struggling to write about it. It is a memoir, a history of southern cuisine and a book on genealogy. Twitty reads the book himself which works well because the book is a very personal journey. He describes himself as an “obsessive cook with compulsive genealogist tendencies who can point to a map of Africa, Europe, North America, and with it, the South, and guide you […]

Messy, grief-filled story

The Minus-One Club by Kekla Magoon

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Oof, this book is messy and emotional. At it’s center The Minus-One Club is a story of grief and finding your way forward after the death of a loved one, but it is also a story of friendship and identity. Kermit just lost his sister after a drunk driver hit her car head-on, and now he has to go back to school and try getting back to “normal.” But he finds an anonymous note in his locker inviting him to a secret meeting, where other […]

What happens in Vegas might not stay in Vegas

Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai

by 3 Comments

When I picked up “Partners in Crime” by Alisha Rai, I had big expectations. I loved Rai’s Modern Love series so much and this book had big shoes to fill. Luckily, this book ended up being such a fun and wild romp. The story follows Mira Chaudhary, a mid-30s accountant who is looking for a stable man to settle down with. She turns to a matchmaker for Indian American singles and meets Naveen Desai, a lawyer at one of the best law firms in the […]

Sad, informative, and moving

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

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I’m not a big reader of graphic novels, but I usually read one or two a year and appreciate the differences in storytelling. With graphic novels, I’ve always steered towards memoirs, and Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (2022) by Kate Beaton, is no different. I first saw Ducks on NPR’s Best Books List. I almost immediately felt a connection to Beaton. We’re not too far apart in age, and I felt her pain as she tells the story of how she struggled after she graduated from college with […]

Review #1: When I Cease to Understand This Book

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut

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This book was a curiosity to me – a “blend of fiction and historical fact” is how it was most often described. But how is that going to work? Truthfully, I read almost exclusively genre fiction, and sometimes feel like I’m missing out or disconnected from the real world – I picked this up wondering if it could reconnect me. The publisher of the book says that When We Cease to Understand the World “is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical […]

Magic Tides: Kate & Curran Still Going Strong

Magic Tides by Ilona Andrews

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Plot summary of Magic Tides: Kate, Curran and their son, Conlan have left Atlanta, vowing to keep a low profile, and are settling into a new city and new house…but some things never change! Magical mayhem is about to erupt when Kate undertakes the rescue of a kidnapped youth, while Curran guards the homefront. It should be a simple retrieval, but with monsters on land and sea, Kate’s got her work cut out for her. Still, she’s never let her blade dull or her purpose […]



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