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.

 

“It’s a good thing you’re a Paladin because you would have never made it as a poet.”

Paladin's Hope (The Saint of Steel #3) by T. Kingfisher (author), Joel Richards (Narrator)

by 4 Comments

The pinning that is a feature of this series is growing on me.  Don’t get me wrong, I would rather have rivals to lovers than a whole lot of pinning but … yeah, it is growing on me.  So yes, third book into the series, some characters from the previous book make appearances (look, I am a sucker for that, I love getting to check in with Stephen and super breifly Istvhan and Clara) as we follow another one ofthe Saint of Steel’s Paladin’s. I […]

“The middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.”

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

by 3 Comments

This book caught me unaware. I didn’t know anything about it, and from a quick glance at the cover I thought it was going to be something light/happy (I dunno, the flowers?) but boy howdy I was wrong. The hints were there all along, the font is harsh, the literal string, but I went in knowing nothing. It was a selection of my library book club, and it was definitely an emotional roller coaster. The premise is this, and I’m not giving away much because […]

Losing Oneself in Art

Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama by Yayoi Kusama

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Yayoi Kusama is one of the most prolific and successful artists of our time. This Japanese born creative genius was a major force on the New York art scene in the sixties, producing interactive installations, performance pieces, and a variety of other artistic offerings. Yet most people are probably more familiar with her contemporaries, like Andy Warhol. In this autobiography published in 2002 (English translation in 2012), Kusama provides some information about her childhood and upbringing, but this is mostly the story of her art […]

Like Lord of the Flies at Disneyland

FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven

by 1 Comment

If you strand a bunch of (mostly) 20 something year old adults who work in a theme park for 35 days during a natural disaster, what do you think would happen? If you’re hoping for Temptation Island level hijinks, you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if you’re leaning toward murder and heads on a stick level violence, then this is the book for you! Think Lord of the Flies, but with adults and multiple tribes. This book works for a lot of reasons. First, you have […]

Go read Melissa while your library still carries it

Melissa by Alex Gino

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On November 7, 2024, I binge-ordered a bunch of books from banned lists – not sure why I remember the date of that order so clearly….  Anyway, my hope was to collect books that I wanted to be sure my daughter has access to, and since I haven’t read many of them myself, I’m planning to alternate them between my usual mysteries, fantasy, and sci-fi.  Melissa is the first book from our new banned book collection that I’ve read. Melissa is geared toward middle-grade kids […]

Eighteen minutes. That’s how long you’ve got to hold ’em.

Tanqueray by Stephanie Johnson and Brandon Stanton

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Stephanie Johnson became famous later in life via the popular blog, “Humans of New York.” I learned of her a couple of months ago when a vignette of one of her stories showed up in my Instagram feed. It was the story of how she became a dominatrix in 1980’s New York. When I searched for more stories, I learned that she had a memoir titled Tanqueray, which was her burlesque stage name. Stephanie has a distinct voice, and Stanton did a lovely job of […]



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