Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Delicately unpacking a whole lot of emotional baggage

Just a Highland Fling by Naina Kumar

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There was a point in Just a Highland Fling where Neelu is in the car with her estranged father and her one night stand antagonist, and I thought, “no one handles emotional baggage like Naina Kumar.” Highland Fling is a lot of fun. I enjoyed it enormously. It’s a good road trip romance with forced proximity, sheep, daddy issues, and a hot Desi bagpiper/poetry professor. What I really loved though was the way Kumar handled big raw feelings and their fallout with delicacy. Neelu is […]

Mists and Mystery

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

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Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson, is Book One of the Mistborn Original Trilogy. Although I read a good amount of fantasy, I have, for some reason, never read any Brandon Sanderson. But, since this year is the 20th anniversary of the original publication of Mistborn, I thought I’d give it a shot. And I’m glad I did. Mistborn is a very good book. The world-building is phenomenal, from the political system to the actual sad, gray, ash-covered lands. The magic system is new and interesting, and […]

You Get Your Choices and You Take Your Chances

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

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cbr18bingo Or (like it says above) This is the third book from Whitehead that I have read – each one a treat and all so very different.  No matter what the subject matter is, he is just a flat out good writer.  (The other two were Sag Harbor and Harlem Shuffle, by the way).  There is a reason he won two Pulitzers in a row. Elwood Curtis and Jack Turner are two black teenagers who end up in the reform school Nickel Academy (based on […]

Everything I’ve done since losing you has been about getting back to you.

The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

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CBR18 Bingo: Maps – Kite and Joe follow and escape from the war by attacking and fleeing different harbours all over Europe. He put his hand out and Kite shook it. Joe had the alien thought that people here must never have touched each other otherwise. There was no kiss, no hug, nothing. They were all oysters sealed in their stiff manners. ― Natasha Pulley, The Kingdoms I tried to let you go, before. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d forget so quickly. ― Natasha […]

Hawthorne & Horowitz go to the movies (sort of)

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz

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CBR18 BINGO: And, because this is the 6th book in the Hawthorne & Horowitz series Anthony Horowitz is back with another Hawthorne mystery, and the premise this time is that his novel The Word is Murder is being turned into a movie! As you can imagine, this novel has fun skewering the movie biz, including pretentious directors, diva actors, ultra-progressive writers, and cut-throat agents. On the other hand, Horowitz the character is surprisingly chill about the modifications being made to his story, saying, “When a […]

I don’t want it to be over

Blood of Dragons: Volume Four of the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb

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Cbr18bingo Versus Blood of Dragons is the thrilling conclusion to The Rain Wilds Chronicles featuring the showdowns readers have been waiting for: men versus dragons, old ways versus new, and that nasty, greedy abuser Hest versus Alise and Sedric.  The traders of Bingtown and the people of the Rain Wilds made a pact with the dragon Tintaglia years ago: Tintaglia would protect them from the warlike Chalcedean Kingdom and in return, they would serve her and any fledgling dragons that emerged from their cocoons. But […]



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