Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A retired sex worker and a rabbi walk into an education conference…

The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan

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If you’re looking for a sweet book that works to dismantle stereotypes around both sex workers and progressive religious people, you’ve come to the right place. Plot: Naomi Grant started her career as a porn performer before transitioning to her own business providing sex education to the masses (think OMGYes.com, which if you’re not familiar with, I encourage you to correct that). She loves teaching but she’s really struggling to find an institution willing to have her, despite her practical experience coupled with a lot […]

Still just OK the second time around

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

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CBR 13 Bingo Square: Landscape Genuine question:  It seemed when Cannonball Book Club was announced The Bear and the Nightingale was presented as a reimagining of Rumpelstiltskin, as that was the fairytale linked to for reading the original.  I don’t see a comparison?  Is there something I’m missing?  Or was I incorrect in that the two were paired together in that way?  Would love to know how others interpret as this feels more like “Cinderella” crossed with “The Twelve Months”. For Cannonball Book Club, I had […]

There’s a Lot More to it Than the Title Implies

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

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CBR Bingo: Cityscape First things first, with a title like that it’s obvious that They Both Die at the End is going to be a tearjerker, and I don’t normally enjoy tearjerkers. It’s a testament to Adam Silvera’s writing that I not only finished this book but that I liked it. Mateo and Rufus are teens living in New York who, just after midnight on the same day, get a call from Death-Cast: the service that accurately predicts the day you’ll die and lets you know […]

Don’t skip this series just because they books are children’s novels, please!

Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce

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BINGO – Gateway – author Tamora Pierce and children’s novels Sandry is the sole survivor of a pox outbreak that killed her entire family; she carries with her the trauma of that loss and being locked in a dark room for months to be safe from marauders. Briar is a street boy with no home who has been caught stealing three times; his options are going to a temple or going to work hard labor at the docks or the mines. Daja is a trader […]

Part Fantasy, Part Messianic Fever Dream

Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

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Cbr13bingo Sportsball Here’s one of those rare (for me) cases of the movie being better than the book. Shoeless Joe, the basis for the 1989 Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams, is a decent-ish fantasy swathed in backward looking heteronormative tropes where a beleaguered white messiah-figure brings redemption to all around him. The parts of the story that interested me involved the baseball field and the players from the past who were resurrected when main character Ray Kinsella built it in his cornfield. Unfortunately, those […]

A book that feeds the soul…literally and figuratively.

A Scone of Contention by Lucy Burdette

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“It’s got to be a strong love for a detective to be married to a slightly unconventional person who has a knack for getting into dangerous situations.” Key West Food critic, Haley Snow and her new husband Nathan Bransford are finally going on their honeymoon. Except their going to Scotland to visit his sister…with his mother…and their neighbor. So it’s definitely not going to be your typical honeymoon. Add in an attempted poisoning and a murder and it gets even more strange. And Haley can’t […]



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