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.

 

“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”

The Stranger by Albert Camus

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Or as I’d call it, “Bartleby the Scrivener, only with murder”. Years ago, I read Albert Camus’ The Plague (frighteningly enough, during Covid, which is a perfect time to read a book about the mass deaths and utter hopelessness an epidemic can cause) and had always been curious about reading this. Now that I have, I have to say I preferred The Plague, mostly because all I can muster up as an opinion on The Stranger is that I read it and didn’t hate it. […]

The title says it all

A Timid Lady was Turned into an Ugly Cat, but on the Verge of Fainting is Picked up by the Most Fearsome Military Duke, vol. 1 by otori, Ema Okadachi, Kou Kusaka

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I enjoy reading very specific and long titles, but I’ve never wanted to read beyond the name until I saw A Timid Lady was Turned into an Ugly Cat, but on the Verge of Fainting is Picked up by the Most Fearsome Military Duke by otori, Ema Okadachi, and Kou Kusaka. The title is very accurate. Marie is the oldest daughter of some viscount and doesn’t have much going for her. The story tells us she’s fat and plain – meaning she looked exactly like the […]

Pow, Right in the Feels

Heart the Lover by Lily King

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Heart the Lover is a new(ish) book from Lily King, published in October of last year. The narrator is a writer, nicknamed “Jordan,” after Gatsby’s Jordan, by two of her classmates. The book follows her relationship with the young men from college through their late-40s. It’s not a long book, only 249 pages, but it definitely packs a punch. I’m a big fan of author Lily King. I think she’s a phenomenal writer and I’ve loved everything I’ve read of hers. That being said, I […]

The return of Nora: The Lost Bride Trilogy

Inheritance by Nora Roberts

The Mirror by Nora Roberts

The Seven Rings by Nora Roberts

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Nora’s got a new trilogy out there, and I stumbled across the first book quite by accident right after it came out, like TWO YEARS AGO. And the first book just…ended, and it was the first time in awhile that I was mad at Nora for not having the others ready. It was a pretty big cliffhanger, even if I can’t remember all the details because it was a thousand years ago. And then she took SO LONG to get the second one out, and […]

Two brothers spiraling, pinwheeling in their grief

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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The first thing I noticed about Intermezzo is there are no quotation marks. So the reader is just plunged into an almost stream-of-consciousness-like trance that could work as either inner dialogue or actual dialogue. It was so bewildering to me in the beginning that I had to reread the first few pages to understand what was happening. After about 10 pages in, my brain got used to it, accepted it, and embraced that stylistic choice — allowing me to tumble headlong into the minds of […]

French Colonial India You Say?

Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi

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Did you know France had established colonies in India?  I had no idea.  Not terribly big ones, mind you, mostly four totally unconnected coastal cities.  The first was established in 1674, with the rest coming along in the 1700s.  Today, they form the Union Territory of Puducherry (AKA Pondicherry).  I looked this up because of the European vibe I was getting from this tale. Grace was born in Pondicherry to an Italian academic and his wife, daughter of one of the established local landowning families.  […]



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