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.

 

A Gentle Exploration of Getting Help With Your Mental Health In a Magical Setting

I Feel Awful, Thanks by Lara Pickle

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After moving to London for her dream job making potions, young witch Joana seems to have it all.  She’s got a great group of friends and a lovely boyfriend.  Sure, her boss is a jerk, work is stressful, and figuring out housing is a pain, but really, she doesn’t have much to complain about.  Really.  Except exhaustion, sadness, and doubt take their toll, and Joana needs help to figure out how to take care of and accept herself. This is a graphic novel that I […]

The Book of Eight Summers Ago

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler

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During one summer off while in college, I worked as a waiter in a tacky chain Mexican restaurant. And for the first two weeks, I was terrible at it. Just awful. Triage was impossible for me. I wouldn’t have lasted half-a-shift at the restaurant in this book. My manager was very encouraging but one of my co-workers just had it in for me. She berated me, belittled me, basically made my life hell because I was a lousy waiter. I eventually got better and by […]

An Excellent Heist

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

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An Arthurian heist novel featuring a tea shop by day and a blood bar by night? I’m in, I’m hooked, let’s gooooo! Arthie Casimir owns Spindrift, the aforementioned tea shop, collecting secrets from the aristocracy while serving tea while also providing a safe haven for vampires and her ragtag band of orphans. She is infamous for literally pulling her pistol from a stone. Jin Casimir is her adopted brother and right hand man. All is going well for the dynamic duo until Spindrift is threatened […]

Return of King: Or how Merry got his groove back

Return of the King by JRR Tolkien

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At last, we have reached the end of the trilogy. I won’t keep you on tenterhooks. My lukewarmest take is still that these books need brutal editing. These books are boring much more often than they are interesting. Still, you’re not here for warm takes. You’re here for hot takes, and I am here to deliver. I first owe Peter Jackson an apology, since Eowyn’s feminist cry was just in the last book rather than in Two Towers. But not a big apology. Tolkien seems […]

You’re not paranoid if everyone is actually trying to kill you.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance (The Tithenai Chronicles Book 1) by Foz Meadows

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I felt a sudden, furious rush of sympathy for every Ralian woman who’d ever been the subject of marital bartering; I was ashamed of my prior indifference to the phenomenon, and wondered, with a certain, sick fascination, if being raised in expectation of such a fate made enduring it any easier. ― Foz Meadows, A Strange and Stubborn Endurance I bought this book a couple of months ago as it was on my “MUST ACQUIRE” list. However, I cannot remember how I heard about it […]

Worth it for the illustrations alone, but there is SO MUCH more here.

This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook by Henry James Garrett

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Embarking on reading This Book Will Make You Kinder I knew extraordinarily little. I could not say I was familiar with its author and illustrator, Henry James Garrett although his visual work is what he is most known for. I had spotted ASKReview’s review (which must be how it ended up on my to read list), but that was pretty much it. But at some point this winter, I plunked it on my library requests list without too much thought other than, I could, in […]



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