Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Talking about my best friend!

Worm and Caterpillar Are Friends Ready-to-Read Graphics Level 1 by Kaz Windness

by Leave a Comment

Normally I would just say this book, Worm and Caterpillar Are Friends Ready-to-Read Graphics Level 1, was just about friendship. And it is, but it is also about being different and yourself. And when you become your final self, this is a real coming out story that is trans based.  Worm, sweet and a bit naïve, says they are like Caterpillar, who is a bit more practical. Such as Caterpillar points out they are not the same when Worm says they are best friends who […]

A girl and her island

Yukie’s Island: My Family’s World War II Story. by Yukie Kimura, Kodo Kimura

by Leave a Comment

Yukie is a young girl who lives on an island with her parents and siblings. She plays and explores with her brother, helps their father keep the lighthouse going, and is excited when they leave the island for school, even on the day she lost her lunch overboard and the fish had a feast because of it. She is a typical young girl, except this is not a story of just any girl, or any island, but one of a young Japanese girl during World […]

Unlikable Likable Lead

People Who Knew Me by Kim Hooper

by Leave a Comment

Best for: People who enjoy novels that constantly move through time. In a nutshell: Emily didn’t die on 9/11, but everyone thinks she did. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: BBC just turned it into a radio play, and when I heard the description of the book I knew I had to read it. It took awhile to find a copy, but I think it was worth it. What it left me feeling: Conflicted. Review: This book jumps back and forth through time, starting […]

Unsatisfying

Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel by Claire Kohda

by Leave a Comment

Woman, Eating was my attempt at getting into the Halloween spirit a bit early. A book about a vampire trying to exist alongside humans without hunting them? As a hardcore Buffy fan, I was intrigued. Lydia is coming of age as a woman in London, alone for the first time. She was born a vampire and has never consumed human blood, her vampire mother raising her exclusively on pigs’ blood. Not just that, her mother also fed her with a liberal dose of daily shame […]

A twisting tale

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

by Leave a Comment

I chose to listen to Piranesi purely because it was the 2021 Audie Awards Audiobook of the Year, and was read by none other than the velvet voiced Chiwetel Ejiofor. Piranesi is about a man navigating his life living in a maze, and likewise presents itself to the reader as a puzzle that must be navigated. I’ve seen this book described as ‘beautiful and profound’, ‘spectacularly moving’, ‘stunning’, and ‘a masterful work of weird fiction’. I’m glad to see that it has had the effect […]

CBR15 Bingo: Europe (triple Bingo)

Folk med ångest (Anxious People) by Fredrik Backman

by 1 Comment

#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (set in and written by a Swedish author, read in Swedish) CBR15 Bingo: Europe (see description for Passport Challenge) Official book description (translated by me): Folk med ångest (literally translated as People with anxiety, official English title Anxious People) is an unusually messy comedy about a hostage drama during an apartment showing, where a failed bank robber locks themselves in with an overly enthusiastic realtor, two bitter IKEA-addicts, a mean multimillionaire, a sad lady, a very pregnant woman, […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo