Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I seem to read a lot of novels about grief

After You’d Gone: A Novel by Maggie O’Farrell

by Leave a Comment

Maggie O’Farrell has a knack for writing about grief. All of the novels of hers that I have read have dealt with strong-willed, unusual women, their love lives, and their grief and sorrow (Hamnet, The Marriage Portrait, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox). After You’d Gone is O’Farrell’s first novel and while perhaps not as polished or finished as her later works, it still kept me glued to the text and broke my heart. It is the story of 29-year-old Alice Raikes who, when the […]

Stand-Up Guy

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

by Leave a Comment

Andy Dawson is a British stand-up comedian of middling success and, he is increasingly worried, of middling talent. Years removed from a Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe, he knows finds himself stuck to performing at second-tier comedy clubs and desperately looking for low-level corporate gigs while his contemporaries are making TV appearances and becoming famous. That, however, is not what’s troubling Andy most as the story begins. He’s just been dumped by his girlfriend of the last four years. Andy was stunned when […]

Medieval Lady Pirate Cruising the Indian Ocean? Hot Damn.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Shakraborty

by 2 Comments

So I found a second new favorite genre this year.  The first is Mexican (actually Latin American) Gothic, and the second is now medieval Middle Eastern lady pirates.  One might think this is a narrow category, but there was The Stardust Thief, which I read a few books back.  This promises to be the first of a trilogy, and the author has a previous trilogy, The City of Brass, which is on its way from Powells even as we speak.  In other words, I am […]

An Influencer Goes Missing…

Such A Bad Influence by Olivia Muenter

by Leave a Comment

But how long before her adoring public starts suspecting she staged it for the views? If something isn’t captured for content did it even really happen? Evie Davis is a second generation social media star, famous since the age of five due to her influencer mom. She’s just turned eighteen with tons of followers, a Youtuber boyfriend, and a momager with her best interests at heart of course. Her older sister Hazel is living the more typical broke 20s lifestyle after having refused to participate […]

A low-angst, cozy romance set in the Swedish countryside

Second Winter by Sophia Soames

by Leave a Comment

Teddy runs his family’s tree farm in a small village in Sweden. He still lives in the house where he grew up and manages the family business, even after losing his father over the previous year. He is getting by but he is unhappy. He worries that life is passing him but he has no energy or hope that anything will change for him. He’s only been in love once, and that boy broke his heart. Ned is the American son of Swedish parents. When […]

I don’t know what the excitement is all about. It’s not like sharks attack people or anything….

I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916: A Graphix Book by Lauren Tarshis and adapted by Georgia Ball

by Leave a Comment

I set myself two goals this year. One was to read a book a day (it averages out to that, but I actually didn’t read a book every day), and the second was to do 12 Cannonballs. As of this review I have 26 books to go… We’ll see! So, one of the ways I was trying to read a book a day was to do simple books. Not books that were simplistic (See Jane. See Dick. See Dick and Jane), but easier reads, fun […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo