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 Magic Of Libraries

What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama

by 1 Comment

My first review of this year is a book I actually read towards the end of last year – Michiko Aoyama’s ‘What you are looking for is in the library’. This was a birthday present from my sister as she knows I love Japanese arts and culture and when I got round to reading it I really appreciated her choice. The book is part of a trend I’ve seen – cosy ‘mystical realism’ books featuring a place such as a cafe or store where visitors […]

Dog Days Are Over, Bitches

For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn

by 2 Comments

For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn is a romantasy that began life as a TikTok skit. Proving the old adage that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, it is also a meditation on grief, loss, love, friendship, family, allyship, and what it means to really live. Throw in some spicy scenes, an unusual presentation of what the afterlife could be, and a great deal of sass, and you have brewed my own personal cup of tea.  When we first meet Lily, […]

Great Ending to the 1st Part of this series

The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson

by 2 Comments

God, I love this book. Endings are difficult as concluding a story in a manner that makes sense and is true to the characters you have been on a journey with is akin to landing a rocket on the moon. Donaldson pulled the feat off with this novel. The sequences where Covenant is being pulled into the Land are incredibly strong. The first attempt fails, not because the Lords of the Land were insufficient, but because when they were attempting to summon Covenant he was […]

“Remember, Vera reminds herself, your ass is bad. Very bad. And that is a good thing.”

Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man) - Vera Wong #2 by Jesse Q. Sutanto

by Leave a Comment

I often make mystery comparisons to one of the greats, Angela Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote. But it’s not a comparison I make lightly, because that show and character brings me ALL the joy, and so does this book. So, this is Jessica Fletcher, if she was a 60 year old Chinese tea shop owner in San Francisco who knows more and better than anyone else. Whereas Jessica is subtle, Vera is anything but. She is pushy, demanding, and downright insulting, but the found […]

The Obelisk Gate: Things get worse before they get better (I hope)

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

by Leave a Comment

Possible spoilers for The Fifth Season – Proceed with awareness. The Obelisk Gate is the second book in the Broken Earth Trilogy. In this installment, we follow two main stories – Essun and Nassun after each has arrived at a new, but separate, comm and the years that follow. Nassun is Essun’s daughter. Nassun had been taken by her father, Jija, after he murdered her little brother, Uche. We heard of them in the first book, but we officially meet them as they travel south […]

“But I am not the heroine of a novel.”

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol 1 by Beth Brower

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol 2 by Beth Brower

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol 3 by Beth Brower

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol 4 by Beth Brower

The Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion Vol 5 by Beth Brower

by 7 Comments

Although she is, in fact, the heroine of a novel, the fact is that Ms. Emma Lion, of The Unselected Journals of Emma M.Lion, Vol 1-5, feels like flesh & blood, throughout every moment & page of these books.  Everything she goes through, even the most absurd, has an aura of authenticity that has me willingly following her into places – and emotions – I would not ordinarily, voluntarily venture. Her author, Ms. Beth Brower, has packed these pages full of wisdom and wit unexpected in […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo