Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“What is a storm? It is water and it is light and it is wind.”

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

by 3 Comments

From the author of the Storied Life of AJ Firky, another multi-decade spanning quiet story of lonely people trying to find family and community with mixed results. Plot: Sam was in a car accident that killed his mother and landed him in the hospital with a fractured foot. He hasn’t spoken a word in six weeks when Sadie, who was visiting a family member, walks into the quasi-living room in the hospital where he’s playing video games and asks to play. He lets her. Then […]

And the Ocean Breeze in Her Hair

The Voyage of the Morning Light by Marina Endicott

by Leave a Comment

CBR15Passport South Seas Kay and Thea, her newly married and much older half-sister, set off one morning in 1911 aboard the sailing ship, The Morning Light.  The ship is a trading vessel bound for the South Seas, and captained by Thea’s new husband, Frances.  Never having been to sea before, Kay does not realize, at first, that she has found the place in which she is most at home, in all the world.  Thirteen years old, and gleefully barefoot, she is a born sailor, and […]

Hot vet and social media star find love in a small town

Chick Magnet by Emma Barry

by Leave a Comment

#CBR15 Passport Challenge – Different genres (contemporary romance) Readers of my blog know that all my reviews are written on my personal blog and then crossposted here on the Cannonball Read, which celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year(!) The recent comment diversion celebrating this, challenging us to write fifteen-word reviews seemed like the opposite of everything my review style represents. I frequently have review titles longer than fifteen words.  Nevertheless, I decided to use the comment diversion to try to help myself through my review […]

A WWI novel both predictable and surprising

In Memoriam: A Novel by Alice Winn

by 1 Comment

In Memoriam is the story of two young men, students from the prestigious (fictional) British public school Preshute, who go off to fight in the First World War. You can imagine, if you are at all familiar with WWI literature, how this tale is going to go, and yet Winn, in her first novel, manages to create a story that is faithful to the horrors of that conflict while still surprising the reader with its conclusion. Winn, herself the product of a British boarding school, […]

“If it works, it works!”

How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps by Andrew Rowe

by Leave a Comment

While I have been a tabletop role playing game guy for about a decade, I was unaware of the literary role playing game (LitRPG) subgenre until earlier this year, when I found out friend’s son was publishing LitRPG books under a pen name (Exciting!) LitRPG is, I guess, kind of a narrative fiction in which characters level up like they would in an RPG. At first blush I was a little confused by this, because it seems like RPGs are often based on fantasy or […]

Jarrett and the Power Ranger

Sunshine: A Graphic Novel by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

by Leave a Comment

Sunshine: A Graphic Novel (with the subtitle of How one camp taught me about life, death, and hope) is not only the follow up to Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Hey, Kiddo: A Graphic Novel, it is a must read! But have tissues ready for the laughs and especially the tears. This time we follow young JJK (Jarrett J. Krosoczka) as he volunteers with five other classmates and two adult chaperones at a camp for children with terminal illness and their family. The main theme of what […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo