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.

 

Really World Class Manga About the Power of Art

Blue Period (Volumes 1-6) by Tsubasa Yamaguchi

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I’d been circling this series for a long time, flipping through the first volume occasionally at the bookstore, and then getting intimidated by the length and also my concern that it seemed emotionally stressful, but I wanted to read it enough that I asked for the first six volume box set for Christmas. Well, I’m really glad that I did that, because what a treat! Blue Period is about a teenage boy, Yatora Yaguchi, who is seen by his parents and peers as a successful and […]

He’s like a star, his gravity pulling Jordan out of his own orbit into Jamie’s.

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters

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Julian Winters’s Last First Kiss has some really excellent yearning. Jordan is trying to prove himself in his new role at the family event planning business and humor his mother by going on a blind date that might be the start to his forever love story. But his cousin’s best friend, Jamie, is making both of those things difficult. Jamie, in the guise of practicing, gave Jordan his first kiss. Jordan has never forgotten it, and maybe neither has Jamie. Jordan is trying to plan […]

Playing Darkly

Darkly by Marisha Pessl

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I am a big fan of Marisha Pessl’s writing, Special Topics in Calamity Physics was a book that reminded me of The Secret History except a lot more fun. Night Film felt like a noir detective novel but more.  Now with Darkly, it is yet another mystery novel and yet so much more. Right off the bat we are introduced to Arcadia “Dia” Collins who basically runs her mother’s antique shop (as her mother and the old doddering couple seem to just bumble around adorably). Her world gets […]

Writing as therapy: the latest Dresden Files novel

Twelve Months by Jim Butcher

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The publication gap between Battle Ground and the new book Twelve Months has been over 5 years, the longest in this series. The back-to-back of Peace Talks and Battle Ground left Harry Dresden in a bad place, and from reading that – and now Twelve Months – it was clear to me that Jim Butcher didn’t appear to be in a good place either. That’s proved true as he’s spoken about his depression, and a divorce that left him struggling – but also not in such a bad […]

Watch The Shadows

Book Of Night by Holly Black

Thief Of Night by Holly Black

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For my birthday this year I decided to read both books in the Charlatan Duology, Holly Black’s Book Of Night and Thief Of Night. I’m a lucky, lucky little shadow creature. Charlie Hall is a (mostly) former con-artist trying to go straight and send her little sister to college. She used to be the Charlatan, an intriguingly effective thief willing to work in the world of shadow magicians.  With just a little blood and a lot of trauma you too can waken your shadow for […]

1929

1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin

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1929 is one of those books I think it’s important to read, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. This is a deeply depressing book in today’s information economy (and regular economy) because it shows you how few lessons we’ve learned in the one hundred years since the Great Depression. Not only do we repeat the same financial mistakes over and over, we apparently have also never punished the people who make financial disaster happen. It echoes a lot of the lessons we failed to […]



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