Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“This is the year where if you are not careful, you could stand to lose it all. There will be one pregnancy, one funeral, and one marriage. A complete turn around the sun by the next Lunar year. But you must fix your relationship with everyone. And I mean everyone in your family. Starting with your daughters.”

The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh

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This was a fun one. The author has said in interviews that she wanted to portray the complexities of Vietnamese American/diaspora relationships between women, and she wanted the women to be messy and make mistakes and have a really hard time not making the same mistakes again and again. So she wrote about a family of cursed Vietnamese women! From the blurb: “Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed. It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave […]

Love Letters are not just for sweethearts

Dear Earth by Isabel Otter

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CBR15Passport, from other country (author and illustrators are both currently living in the UK and grew up one in the UK and one in the Seychelles Islands) There are several books about environmental and the impact we have on it. This picture book by Isabel Otter takes that idea and has a young girl write a love letter to the  Dear Earth allowing us to see both the impact, and things we can do to help. It is about how Tessa (the young girl) loves […]

Do you find yourself comfort reading?

Encore in Death by J. D. Robb

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I’m 100% that bitch. And I don’t need a DNA test. J. D. Robb’s Encore in Death is the 56th installment in her long running futuristic mystery series. If you’re a fan of the series, it’s a perfectly adequate installment. It would not be a good entry point if you’re looking to start something new. Let’s face it, these books are comfort reading. Like most long running series, there has been extensive character development and world building. This means that there are numerous references to […]

Nefarious forces, scheming plots, and a water demon

The Queen’s Favorite Witch V02 The Lost King by Benjamin Dickson

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CBR15Passport another country (set in England, both author & illustrator live in UK) The Queen’s Favorite Witch V02 The Lost King has the old distinction of being maybe not as good as the first, but also just as good as the first. I mean, I enjoyed volume one (even though it was a familiar story, it felt fresh and new) and built the second volume up so much (hard not to, even subconsciously) it was of course going to happen. But this time, we have […]

An elephant never forgets. Until she does

Never Forget Eleanor by Jason June

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CBR15Passport new to me author (though I had heard the name Jason June, I realized, I have never actually read them!)   Jason June you are a mean, person! How could you pull on my heartstrings with your lovely story of a grandmother elephant and her grandson elephant going through a difficult situation? Why did you make me cry? Of course, you Loren Long, I blame, too!  Those sweet, illustrations of adorable elephant ears and big eyes looking up at his grandmother while they do […]

Ryszard Kapuściński (1)

Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński

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“Everything is in confusion, as though the police have just finished a violent, nervous search.” I was born in the alight aftermath of Iranian Revolution which was mostly the political aftermath in the US with the lingering hostage situation and the recent election of Ronald Reagan. Culturally, I think I knew of and understood Iran entirely through Naked Gun and The Simpsons. I now know a lot of the specific history of the revolution, but that has come in disparate ways here and there. It’s […]



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