Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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National Poetry Month- what doesn’t kill you still hurts

Our Lady of the Ruins by Traci Brimhall

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When it comes to reading poetry, I tend to stick with the classic epic poems like Beowulf and The Odyssey or more contemporary YA poetry-as-novel (The Poet X, Brown Girl Dreaming). I can’t remember a time outside of a classroom when I read a poetry collection. So for the CBR book exchange last December, one of my suggestions for whomever was buying for me was a book of poems, and Cannonballer Bonnie sent me this slim but stunning and provocative collection by contemporary award-winning poet Traci Brimhall. I feel somewhat at a loss as to how to review poems, but […]

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4/19/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:18 |

52: My dive into the pool involved a book that was just okay.

The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi

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Before the review, a disclaimer: I decided that a triple Cannonball or greater would not be feasible or even fun with my current workload. I’m working a few jobs and trying to shoehorn research in (on my own time and dime, because adjunct faculty do not get time built into our jobs), all while trying to hold a few church offices. Last year, I had a really hard time reviewing enough books and I have barely made my reading goals the last two years in a row. I thought a slower pace would suit me best, because the whole point […]

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6/19/2018 's CBR10 Review No:52 |

51: An intriguing play that riffs off Plato’s cave allegory

The Shadow of the Hummingbird by Athol Fugard

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I’m developing a “new global literature” online course, which means lots of lovely reading! For each of the literature courses I have developed, I like to implement a variety of genres. Further, since this is global literature, I need to think about several nations or regions being represented that are not European or Western in focus. Finally, since this is “new” global literature, I decided that everything needed to be published after 9/11, as a starting point to thinking about how globalization changed. This is all a very long preamble to my review, but that’s the reason I read a […]

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6/19/2018 's CBR10 Review No:51 |

50: Revisiting a haunting and beautiful dystopian novel

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

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The Chancellor has June’s book club pick for our friend group, and he chose Future Home of the Living God, much to my enormous delight. I read and reviewed this about seven months ago for CBR 9, so I am going to plunk that link right here and just talk about my response for this re-read. Because I loved it even more than the first time I read it. I think we’re going to have a rollicking discussion this month, because a few of us loved it, and The Chancellor DID NOT. This time around, the theme of uncertainty really […]

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6/10/2018 's CBR10 Review No:50 |

49: An okay VR novel

Arena by Holly Jennings

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I had never heard of Holly Jennings or Arena before my library book club assigned it, but that’s the beauty of reading new books and authors you never knew existed. I am also not a video gamer at all, so the content is unfamiliar. Sometimes, I learn a lot, and other times, I learn to gut through a book in order to finish and be able to discuss it with other people. This book, I am afraid, falls into the latter category for me. Kali Ling is an interactive gamer for a tournament. She’s part of a team which must […]

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6/10/2018 's CBR10 Review No:49 |

48: An intriguing new novel

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

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I’m a sucker for new books, but I don’t often read them, because of time limits, my library tower (graduated from stack), and my enormous TBR list in general. My sister recommended Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, and I saw it available at my library and put it in my basket on a whim (yes, I have officially gotten greedy to the point of getting basketfuls of books from the library—it’s a new first for me!). It was a great book to read on the airplane from my Florida vacation, and an interesting summer read in general. I have not read […]

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6/10/2018 's CBR10 Review No:48 |

47: An okay emergent YA novel from a great talent.

When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds

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I greatly enjoy Jason Reynolds’ voice in young adult literature. I think his works are necessary to adding diverse literature for young adult readers, and I have liked his novels to this point. Since I read and LOVED All American Boys  and Long Way Down, I think I may have a hard time going back to his first books (case in point: The Boy in the Black Suit was just okay). So I had that in mind when I read When I Was the Greatest, which is apparently trending at my library. Ali is fifteen and lives in a brownstone […]

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6/10/2018 's CBR10 Review No:47 |

46: An uneven and somewhat disappointing debut

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

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I was trawling the library’s New Books shelves (as you do when the school year is over, and you can easily read a stack of books in a few weeks), and R.F. Kuang’s debut novel The Poppy War caught my eye. I am trying to read more work by women of color, and science fiction/fantasy is not always the easiest to come by. I decided that this book held an intriguing premise, and I was curious to see how it would pan out. I read this book over my Florida vacation (complete with a Sunday morning where my nephew and […]

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6/10/2018 's CBR10 Review No:46 |


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