Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

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.

 

‘Aint no chocolates here

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

by 2 Comments

“Buy my step-father’s ghost.” You’d think this was a novel idea, but it is something you can find on ebay today. I was going to link something here but got the heebie jeebies just searching for haunted items and don’t need the bad vibes right now. Although I have to wonder, does it increase the value of an item to describe it as haunted? In either case, buyer beware! Heart Shaped Box is Hill’s first full-length novel, published in 2007 (he also published a collection […]

Highly intelligent cats and smack-talking dolphins. What’s not to love?

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

by 2 Comments

Many people fantasize about an estranged relative dying and leaving them a fortune or a thriving business. Few people would indulge in this fantasy if the estranged relative’s business were villainy, and if, in addition to the job, they inherited a long list of enemies. This is the situation Charlie Fitzer finds himself in when his Uncle Jake dies and he’s visited by his uncle’s second-in-command, Mathilda Morrison. Even before Morrison shows up, Charlie has problems. Once a successful journalist, he’s now an underemployed substitute […]

“California, here we come, right back where we started from…”

Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History by Alan Sepinwall

by 6 Comments

I picked the lyric above from Phantom Planet’s “California” (The O.C.’s theme song) because it nails how I feel about reconnecting with The O.C., a show that holds a curiously large place in my heart. I’ve visited the show at various life stages, from being a teenage college student all the way through being a grown family man with kids of my own. Life changes, but my love for The O.C. stays the same. Why? What keeps me coming back? I picked up Alan Sepinwall’s […]

Sensible, Humane Advice

Mini Habits for Weight Loss by Stephen Guise

by 2 Comments

Normally I avoid books like Mini Habits for Weight Loss like the plague. I had an eating disorder many years ago and dieting is an anathema to me. However, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 kidney disease recently and have to change my lifestyle in an attempt to stop further deterioration. It’s a tricky spot. Luckily I like all kinds of food and I can cook, so that will help. But there’s no getting around that it would help to lose some weight and increase […]

This Sh*t Is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Final Girls by Riley Sager

by 8 Comments

A young woman stumbles out of the woods in a red dress, screaming loudly that someone is chasing her. A nearby police officer finds her and shoots the crazed killer, a psychopath who has escaped from a nearby mental hospital. Years later, Quincy is known as a ‘final girl’: the only survivor of a bloody massacre. There are other Final Girls and when one of them dies, another comes to find Quincy. Quincy, at first, is happy to have Sam with her: Sam knows what […]

A Guest in the House: a twisty, turny, graphic novel

A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll

by Leave a Comment

mood music: Crazy – gnarls barkley The last graphic novel I read was Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, a dark and gritty telling of the Joker’s origins as a failed comedian turned violent criminal. This seems to be a pattern with the graphic novels that I gravitate towards, including Watchmen and Maus, and this novel is no different. Written and illustrated by E.M. Carroll (formerly Emily Carroll), the story tells the tale of Abby, a recently married discount store clerk, and follows her day-to-day with […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo