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.

 

“Or just another lost angel, city of night”

L. A. Women (2025) by Ella Berman

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I picked this book up because I liked the font, and the colours, and I’m fascinated by Los Angeles (where, of course, I’ve never been), and its foggy shadows and neon gleam: the films, the music, the messy myths and sprawling stories. The story here is a little Natalie Beach/Caroline Calloway if they lived in the 1960s-1970s, haunting Laurel Canyon instead of Cambridge and New York. Berman’s story centres on Gala and Lane, the friend with the glitter, the friend in the shadows, and the […]

Trans Rights Readathon Books

The Deep & Dark Blue by Niki Smith

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

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The Deep & Dark Blue This is a middle grade graphic novel with a lovely trans-affirming message. Hawke and Grayson are twin grandchildren of the head of a noble house. After a coup that kills the grandfather and the presumptive heir, the twins run to the Communion of Blue, a group of women spinners and weavers who help spin the world. They disguise themselves as girls—Hanna and Grayce—and take the role of initiates. While Hawke chafes under these new restrictions, Grayce begins to accept that […]

The Power of Pottery

The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin

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The Healing Season of Pottery was my bookclub’s January pick. The member who chose it is really into cozy fiction and came across this title. This was a new author and title for all of us, but had been recommended by an indie bookstore. Jungmin has had a rough year. She’s had a melt down at her high-pressure job and is feeling untethered to life and society around her. She stumbles into a pottery shop that also offers classes and through these classes she finds […]

A murder mystery around a mythical history

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

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It’s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don’t want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn’t it. […]

I think a woman should inspire a modicum of terror. It is her right.

A Lady for All Seasons by TJ Alexander

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A Lady for All Seasons reminded me of a Shakespeare comedy – fluid genders, secret identities, couples trying to arrange themselves rather than be arranged, and at least a few fools. Be warned, Lord Byron makes multiple appearances. We met Lady Verbena and Éttienne Charbonneau in A Gentleman’s Gentleman. When Christopher (Lord Eden) and James left the country to avoid the requirement that Christopher marry to retain his inheritance, he transferred ownership of his London house to Éttienne. Now a year later, Verbena needs a […]

My Fate is in Your Hands

This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner

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You can also add this to the list of books I have been meaning to read for a while Back in September 2005, Robert Farquharson’s VN Commodore swerved off the Princess Highway not far from the town of  Winchelsea and dove straight into a dam. His three young sons—Jai, Tayler and Bailey—had been in the car with him and while Farquharson was able to get free, the boys all drowned.  Farquharson claimed that it was all an accident; he supposedly suffered from a coughing fit […]



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