Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Every man you ever meet is nothing but the product of what was withheld from him, what he feels owed.

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

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CBR13 BINGO: Travel (Alexandria Egypt to a Mediterranean island) BINGO! (Free to Machinery row) I love it when CBR Bingo brings something into my life that I may not have picked up otherwise. On the hunt for the “Travel” square, this title jumped out from the new book display at my library and turned out to be one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. When bodies wash up on a small Mediterranean island, the local officials gather the remains and comb through the detritus of […]

And all for a spot of snow.

The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown by Julia Quinn, Suzanne Enoch, Karen Hawkins, Mia Ryan

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CBR13 BINGO: Old Series (Lady Whistledown Series 2003) BINGO! (The Wilds to Free row) When I finished the Bridgerton books, I snatched up all of the Bridgerton adjacent novels. I figured I would bust them out once the weather got cooler (it will get cooler, right?) and I could curl up with a cup of tea and while away an autumn afternoon with Regency shenanigans. I guess taking advantage of a momentary reprieve of almost 90 degree weather before ramping right back up into the high 80’s AGAIN kinda works? In my […]

The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

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CBR13 BINGO: Pandemic and 1/2 Cannonball! I used to read a lot more YA. A lot as in almost exclusively, and was particularly drawn to the fantasy/supernatural end of that spectrum. Rife with trilogies and series, which are also my bag, I fell down that particular rabbit hole for years. I think I was a little overloaded on it after awhile and when books began to blur together, I kind of phased out. I guess when you get to the point where you can’t remember which […]

Pumped Up Kicks

Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton

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Three Hours of what, you ask? A school shooting. I know, I know. It’s 2021. Things are bad enough. Why would you want to read a book about a school shooting? Because it’s really well done. It’s obviously an incredibly heavy topic that must be approached carefully, but Lupton has done that (and more). The first smart choice she made was to base the siege in the United Kingdom. The second smart choice she made was to do her research. A lot of research… and […]

“What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

White Night by Jim Butcher

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In one word: Damsels Cannonball Read Bingo: Free! (From my local library) The Dresden Files are what I would call a fun yet forgettable romp. Every time I am writing a review I’m typically behind so I’m already halfway into his next book and have completely forgotten the plot of the previous one. This was no different. This time around I’m actually 3/4 through book 10 already so book 9 is truly a thing of the past. Butcher takes a page from Charlaine Harris (or […]

“And it wasn’t fair. That was the thing that was at the heart of my reluctance and my resentment. Some people make it out of their stories unscathed, thriving. Some people don’t.”

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

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In one word: Grieving Cannonball Read Bingo: Uncannon I picked this for uncannon because Gyasi is giving new life to a story that we’ve seen many times over from the Eurocentric white perspective. There have been plenty of books about drug addiction (even specifically about Oxycontin and the havoc it is wreaking in America), mental illness, the crossroads of science and religion in academia, and an overachieving character trying to fix her heart by using her head. She is taking very familiar tropes and given […]



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