Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I was promised a coven and all I got was a middle aged woman filled with internalized misogyny

Go Gentle by Maria Semple

by Leave a Comment

Bingo Square: Wealth (there’s a bunch of super rich characters whose wealth and privilege is never truly reckoned with) And the streak continues … I swear, I like reading and books but it is easier to articulate my thoughts on the ones that are flawed, and I do feel like I have been reading a larger than usual amount of books that aren’t working for me. Am I getting worse at picking books (this one was a book club choice, though), am I extra critical […]

State of Confusion

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

by Leave a Comment

When assistant prosecutor Bert Cousins crashes a christening party at the house of Fix Keating, a cop he barely knows, he improbably winds up kissing the cop’s beautiful young wife, Beverly, sparking an affair that ends two marriages and leads to Bert and Beverly getting remarried to each other. The new family results in a blended menagerie of six kids, who wind up spending summers in Virginia, where Bert and Beverly relocated. The children struggle to get along with each other when they are forced […]

A Court of Mist and Finally Getting the Hype

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas

by 4 Comments

Okay, I know I said I was done with this romantasy bull, but I came back. I was on a weekend away with friends, lamenting how much I despised the first of the ACOTAR novels, particularly Tamlin. I really, really, really hated Tamlin. You can read my first review if you’re so inclined. But they all convinced me to give the second novel a try. After a lot of berating and a great deal of frozen alcoholic beverages, I agreed. So I followed through on […]

Dungeon Me, Maybe

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

by 3 Comments

At long last, I have joined the throngs of adoring fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, having listened to the first audiobook via Audible. The voice acting was by far the best voice acting I think I’ve ever had in an audiobook, closely followed by Project Hail Mary, which also had exceptional voice acting. The story starts with the destruction of planet Earth and the commencement of a terrifying dungeon crawler computer game, but in real life, where Carl and his trusty cat, […]

Part Little House, Part Russian Tale

The Snow Child: A Novel by Eowyn Ivey

by Leave a Comment

Cbr18bingo craft (a husband and wife craft a child out of snow) The Snow Child is an engaging novel that combines life on a harsh frontier with a fanciful, magical fairy tale. Both can be quite grim and yet it is not a foregone conclusion that harsh reality will ever prevail. Withstanding the storms requires personal strength and the willingness to reach out to others and form bonds. A certain amount of risk is involved, which can be both terrifying and exhilarating. Eowyn Ivey sets […]

Is there a good time to be a woman?

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

by Leave a Comment

I can’t remember where I first heard of Yesteryear (2026) by Caro Claire Burk, but I was immediately intrigued by the premise. A successful Youtuber “trad wife” suddenly finds herself back in the year 1855 as an OG “trad” wife. I knew nothing else about the novel, but I was hoping for some clever satire. The book begins with our protagonist, Natalie Heller Mills doing an interview. She lives in a gorgeous farmstead with her husband and five (?) children–with one on the way. Their lives are […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo