Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Finding Home

Yossel’s Journey by Kathryn Lasky

by Leave a Comment

Yossel’s Journey seems like, at first blush, that it will be a typical Jewish family immigrates to America. And while the characters of Kathryn Lasky’s latest picture book (due in September 2022), leave Russia due to the pogroms of the 1880s, and stop for a spell in New York where things are familiar (houses brush up against each other, you can smell the food your neighbors are cooking), they do not stay. They travel by wagon to the Southwest where they run a trading store, […]

When a tumbleweed learns a little mindfulness

Slow Down, Tumbleweed! by Haven Iverson

by Leave a Comment

Slow Down, Tumbleweed! is not in Tumbleweeds vocabulary. Feeling the world is only worth living if they are flying and rushing through it, Tumbleweed is always go go going! They never stop to take a breath. That is, not until they become stuck on a fence on a farm. At first, Tumbleweed is sad, crying, missing the sights around them (such as a handsome badger). But soon they realize, there is much more to life when you stop and be still, when you stop and […]

Tiny Monster Big Ol’ Heart

Anzu the Great Kaiju V01 by Benson Shum

by Leave a Comment

Looking around for fun reads I found Anzu the Great Kaiju V01. At first, I was not sure if Benson Shum’s creation would be fun, but the cover had potential. And after reading, I decided that yes, Shum’s book was fun. We follow a tiny monster that is a Kaiju. When they come of age, they get their own city to terrorize. Their own city that they can unleash their own, unique, special talent. And Anzu comes from a long line proud monsters. They can […]

I’ve talked myself around to being really annoyed by this book.

The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton

by Leave a Comment

I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. It’s not bad, it’s just very… first novel-y. Which is to say that the story has the sense that the author spent a lot of her younger years thinking about it and tries to cram in four different stories. Have you ever written an email and forgotten a word or two but your brain knows the words are supposed to be there, so it just inserts them when you proofread and then you send the email […]

The Grifter and the Heiress

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown

by Leave a Comment

The goodreads description of this book uses phrases like “scam of a lifetime” “page turner” and “dazzling, twisty, mesmerizing.” My experience of this book was…quite different. Nina is the only child of a con-woman mother. Though determined to make a straight living, her mother’s recurring illness has pushed her to the wrong side of the law: stealing antiques from the rich and selling them on the black market. Vanessa is an heiress without much smarts or ambition, “self made” as an Instagram Influencer. When Nina […]

Christmas in June

Christmas Romance by Catherine Hart, Betina Krahn, Linda Ladd, Barbara Dawson Smith, Katherine Sutcliffe

by Leave a Comment

Because why not kick off the summer with Christmas romances? A Christmas Melodie (Catherine Hart) – 2.5 stars Melodie is a mail order bride on her way out to Colorado, but when she is snowed in with a handsome widower and his four children, she gets rather side-tracked. I found Melodie likable, but the hero David to be rather annoying with how pushy he was. I also didn’t love that a child-free heroine ended up changing her mind merely on a few days acquaintance with […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo