Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Blackout (of a character and on the bingo card)

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

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Cbr14bingo Gaslight/Bingo Blackout  Action takes place during and in decades prior to WWI. A couple of characters struggle to believe the truth and question each other’s reliability. The Return of the Soldier is a novella that exposes the iniquities of Britain’s class system against the backdrop of World War I. It is a heartbreaking love story that focuses on the women in one soldier’s life as he convalesces following an unusual injury in France. This story features four main characters. The injured soldier, Captain Chris […]

I liked it, even though it could use more dragons

A Natural History of Dragons, A Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan

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CBR BINGO: Monster, because there be dragons in here! BINGO: Rec’d, Monster, Verse, Bird, Time First of all, I love this image on the cover. The idea of a naturalist who studies dragons is appealing to me, as someone who a) enjoys naturalist memoirs and b) enjoys fantasy. The marriage of science and fantasy appeals to my nature, and I was very excited to read this book. And, I enjoyed it. But I didn’t love it as I hoped. A Natural History of Dragons is […]

One Bad Day

Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland

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Cbr14bingo Scandal/bingo  Published in 1988 generated controversy for its violence, treatment of Barbara Gordon, Moore’s later criticism of his own. See this story in the Guardian. Batman: The Killing Joke, published in 1988, has had enormous influence on Batman movies and seems to be the generally accepted version of the Joker’s origin story. While I haven’t seen all of the Batman movies, as I read this graphic novel, I recognized that Hollywood has largely adopted Alan Moore’s story as canon. Moore himself in subsequent years […]

Putting the fun in dysfunctional

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

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Cbr14bingo Holiday/bingo Holidays on Ice is a collection of David Sedaris essays, some previously published and some new, all related to holidays. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Halloween are all represented through autobiographical reflections as well as imaginative fictional stories. If you are unfamiliar with Sedaris, you should know that his writing is both hilarious and often shocking. He has a talent for making very inappropriate and unsettling statements but often in such a funny way that you laugh anyway. Like many people I became familiar […]

He will not kill me. He does not get to make me a statistic.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

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You cannot appease someone into loving or respecting you. ― Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow I chose this book because I saw it reviewed on CBR14 and damn, did it look interesting. Feminist wrath? Yes, please. To sum it up, Wu Zetian is angry. Not just a little pissed, but vengeful and rightly so. In her world, humanity is in a centuries-long battle with the Hundans, an alien species which invaded their planet. The only way to keep the Hundans from overtaking the entire planet is to […]

Doesn’t it suck when you’re dead?

Undeaded by Eliott Ventadour

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The publisher description of  Undeaded by Eliott Ventadour says it all: After being declared clinically dead, traveling salesman Ed Zamsa tries to go on with his life regardless of his strange condition. As if things weren’t hard enough without being dead. Therefore, all I will say this book is WARPED and it is BIZARRE, and it is NOT safe for work. It has language, sex, murder, and mayhem. There is an offbeat sense of humor not everyone will appreciate or get. Even if some of […]



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