Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This book took me ten months to finish (double bingo)

Monstress, vol 1: The Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda

by Leave a Comment

CBR14 Bingo: Monster (there are several monsters in this story, both humanoid and not) Official book description: Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900’s Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steampunk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers. So total honesty here. […]

His wife is acting different and it smells like infidelity

Full spredning: en legeroman (Natural Causes) by Nina Lykke

by 1 Comment

Elin has worked as a GP in the centre of Oslo for more than two decades. She’s married to Aksel, an orthopedist who seems obsessed with either cross country skiing in the winter and roller skis in the summer. They met during med school, and have lived in the same house long enough to see the little residential area that used to be full of idealistic and progressive residents become distinctly upper-middle class (as have they). They are now empty nesters after their two daughters […]

Teetering on the Edge of Fantastic

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

by 2 Comments

While buying a copy of Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble, Amazon alerted me that I “might also like” Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove. I’ve never read Swamplandia (although I’m totally going to now), and I knew nothing of Russell and her work, but the title sounded awesome and I’m always looking for quality speculative short fiction. I was not disappointed. Russell’s fabulous and her collection is as varied and weird and wonderful as the title suggests. Her work runs the gambit from vampires subsisting on lemons in […]

“Maybe the real question is why are your friends so turn-into-pigsable?” BINGO

Circe by Madeline Miller

by 5 Comments

#CBR11 Bingo: Remix  (Would also work for Award Winner, Listicle (was on a ton of Best of 2018 lists) and/or Cannonballer Recommends) Official book description: In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft. When love drives Circe […]

Not what I was expecting

by 2 Comments

Spoiler warning! In my explanation of what worked and didn’t for me in this story, I will be going into plot specific details. If you want to approach this story completely unspoiled, you may just want to read the first few paragraphs. Binti is the first of her people, the Himba, to be offered a place at the Oomza University, the finest in the galaxy. She pretty much runs away, knowing that her decision to take her place at the university might mean she is no […]

THUG gave me all the feels

by 2 Comments

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas deserves all the hype and awards. The story centers around teenager Starr Carter who lives in the African-American community of Garden Heights while attending an expensive private school on the posh side of town. She has two sides of her life, two faces she shows each environment. Her white boyfriend Chris has never met her Dad. Her friend Kenya, who she shares a half-brother with has never met any of her high school friends. The two worlds collide after […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo