Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My friend is always making me read science fiction

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

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CBR17Bingo – “Recommended” because this book was recommended to my by my friend. Most of my book club is composed of a bunch of lawyers. However, there is one, lonely electrical engineer among us who is constantly recommending science-fiction novels that are met with a varying amount of acceptance. She has recommended a number of Hugo-award-winning novels to me that I have intensely disliked, so I don’t completely trust her judgment. So, when she loaned me another science-fiction book to read and said she didn’t […]

That which we call a rose

The Names by Florence Knapp

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I’m a sucker for a Sliding Doors kind of story – Lionel Shriver’s The Post Birthday World, Kristin Cashore Jane, Unlimited … – I just enjoy seeing how the author envisions people having completely different relationships based on one decision. Sometimes, there is a sense of poignancy and sadness as a reader as we know things the characters never will, we see how people that could have been best friends in one life are barely passing strangers, seeing a loss the characters never even realize […]

A More Complete Version of Huck Finn

James by Percival Everett

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CBR17Bingo – “Black” for the mostly black cover James (2024) by Percival Everett has been everywhere. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and I’d seen reviews and mentions of it all over the place. Barack Obama recommended it as well. So, it was only a matter of time before I got around to reading it. As most people know by now, James is a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain from the point of view of Jim. I’m pretty sure I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn many, many […]

Music and Love

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto

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CBR17Bingo – “N” for “Not Another Love Song” I found Not Another Love Song (2024) by Julie Soto through my book club. We didn’t actually choose this one for book club, but another book clubber highly recommended it. This piqued my curiosity, and I was able to get it almost immediately on Audiobook. This is a young-adult romance, which I generally enjoyed. Although it wasn’t my favorite, the emphasis on music throughout the story made it feel unique. Gwen Jackson is a child prodigy and self-taught violinist. […]

“I wanted to go home, where I felt safe. It occurred to me, as we continued our journey in silence, that when the first refugees from Earth had arrived on Giant—and, for that matter, on Io—they must have felt much the same.”

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

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When I finished The Mimicking of Known Successes a couple weeks ago I knew I wasn’t in love with that book, but that I wanted to continue reading the series to see how Malka Older built out her world and dug into her sapphic Watson & Holmes stand-ins because I had become quite attached to Mossa and Pleiti. The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles begins the same way as its predecessor in that we get a prologue from Mossa’s point of view and then the rest […]

“Time remembered does not flow smoothly at all”

The Truants by Kate Weinberg

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Jess is the middle child of a large, chaotic family and she feels largely ignored, so when she finally heads off to university, it comes as a relief. It takes her a while to find her groove, but then she meets her friends. There is glamorous, upper-crusty Georgie, attractive and steady Nick, and Georgie’s mysterious boyfriend Alec. Above all, there is Jess’s primary reason for her studies: teacher and author Lorna. Lorna has written a very successful and much-lauded novel called The Truants, and Jess […]



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