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.

 

hot take yes this is an info dump but also I will mainline more cosmere

Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson

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BINGO: Black, it’s all over this cover There is a lot of telling instead of showing in this book, for an author who is already sort of well known (and, in some circles, sneered at) for being very tell-y. To be fair, I think it’s because Sanderson is very keen on his world and excited to tell us about it! And to be even more fair, I am a little Cosmere gremlin who will never be satisfied with details and arcana, no matter how arcane. […]

“But not everyone has dreams. Some people just are, the way that trees and rocks and rivers are just there without a reason, the rest of the world moving around them.”

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

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CBR17 Bingo: Citizen – Though Cora is a citizen of the United States, her race – as well as the race of the many murdered Asian women in this book – makes everyone around them perceive them as foreigners to the point that they are stripped of the safety that their citizenships were supposed to have given them. Cora works as a crime scene cleaner during the COVID-19 pandemic – after witnessing her sister pushed in front of a train, the gore doesn’t bother her anymore. […]

Not Exactly Mexican Gothic, But Close Enough

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

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cbr17bingo Border Now this was an interesting one.  Mexican Gothic is my jam, and I thought that this would be along that vein, but it turned out to be definitely its own thing – an intriguing cross between fictionalized family lore and magical realism.  And when I looked up the translation of Part Two – El Tragabalas, I discover that it is the book’s title in Spanish, but it is also the title of a fairly well known Mexican movie from the mid-60s, and the […]

Push by Sapphire | The Book behind ‘Precious’

Push by Sapphire

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I think most people have heard of the 2009 film ‘Precious’, even if they haven’t seen it. It’s notorious, one of the most upsetting films of all time. I saw ‘Precious’ two years ago, when I was sixteen and about to start therapy for my own post-traumatic stress. The film hit me hard and incredibly close to home, and I was completely floored. Since then, I have thought of it often. Now nineteen, out of therapy and off medication, I decided to read ‘Push’ – […]

Shifters, fairies, bake offs, oh myyyy

The Alpha and the Baker by Roxie Ray

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Y’all, when I tell you this delightfully sweet and sexy bon bon of a novel is everything I needed to take my mind off of [insert Kermit flail here] everything. I just didn’t know it when I started The Alpha and the Baker by Roxie Ray this morning. Castiel McAllister*, known by one and all as Cas, is a golden retriever of an alpha wolf shifter. Nary a grunt or assholery behavior to be found, only a desire for his pack to be safe, healthy […]

Short and sweet, with great illustrations

The Dragon of Og by Rumer Godden

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Our 2025 read-aloud journey continues! I found this one thanks to a list along the lines of, “If you liked The Hobbit…” We read it in one afternoon (it’s very short), and both kids give it two thumbs up. The titular dragon has a lovely home under a pool in a river belonging to Lord of Tundergarth, a home found for him by his thoughtful mother. He is a shy, quiet dragon who eats only one bullock every 2 or 3 weeks, from the cattle […]



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