Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search this Site

Hail Mary, full of Grace

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

by Leave a Comment

According to Wikipedia, “A Hail Mary pass is a very long forward pass in American football, typically made in desperation, with an exceptionally small chance of achieving a completion. Due to the difficulty of a completion with this pass, it makes reference to the Catholic “Hail Mary” prayer for divine help.” When Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary begins, Ryland Grace is the sole living astronaut onboard a spaceship named Hail Mary heading to a distant star as a one-shot suicide mission to save the Earth. […]

Save your time, avoid this book.

Saving Grace by Debbie Babitt

by Leave a Comment

I’m not going to bury the lede, I deeply dislike this book. There is not one likable character, nor one that exhibits more than one dimension of personality. The story alternates between frustrating and non-sensical and the finale twists are eye-rolling. This is a bad, Z-grade attempt to emulate Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Paula Hawkins without understanding what makes those three so good. Mary Grace Dobbs is the newly sworn-in sheriff of her hometown of Redemption, Arkansas in 2019. She got the job after […]

Inspiring a case of the midnight giggles

Calypso by David Sedaris

by Leave a Comment

This isn’t so much a review, as a love letter to the mind of David Sedaris. You’ll just have to bear with me here… I first heard David Sedaris on the This American Life podcast. His storytelling was always peppered with humour, wry, and occasionally intensely personal. But what captured me most was his voice. It was so mild… verging on prim at times. Which makes his storytelling all the more engaging, as his voice rarely matches his topics. David Sedaris’ delightfully dark and twisted […]

Like hope, stupid also floats.

by Leave a Comment

Quite possibly the stupidest, most aggravating character in recent memory blunders her way through a mystery like an amateur Inspector Clouseau. It’s staggering how many poor decisions our hero Laura “Lo” Blacklock makes on a minute to minute basis. I had to keep checking that the author wasn’t actually a man writing under a woman’s pseudonym because this is one of the most misogynistic books I’ve read in some time. Sample dialogue: “I groaned at my own stupidity…” “Why didn’t I listen to…” “How could […]

…thou shalt see that it is barren.

by 1 Comment

Like many of you I have had an adverse reaction to the state of politics over the last few hellish months since President Eats-His-Steak-With-Catsup-Like-A-Goddamn-Child was sworn in to office. To be honest it still feels like a nightmare and I find myself jolting at least once a day when I remember that the people of the United States elected that lying gasbag as the President. This is why I don’t watch shows like Black Mirror. When this is our reality there is no reason to […]

All That’s in a Name

by Leave a Comment

This week I finished The Namesake, the first novel of Pulitzer Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. When I first picked it up I had no idea what it was about, and knew only that Lahiri’s second novel The Lowland had been nominated for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award in 2013. In my decision to diversify my reading list, her works made their way to the top of my TBR pile. Read the rest of the review here.



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo