Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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ScoobyDoo for grown ups but not quite enough

Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega

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So I’ve been wondering for a while why it seems to be that there can’t be ghost stories for grown-ups that don’t involve detailed often gory horror and/or a lot of unnecessary personal (self-inflicted at least partially most often) angst or troubles. Seannan McGuire’s Ghost Roads series comes close, but that’s only 2 (as of right now) books. I fine with tension and spooky and supernatural, but so much of what’s out there right now is too far into the brands of horror that I […]

Not as good as her last one

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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Official book description: Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass and cedar palace on an island in British Columbia. Jonathan Alkaitis works in finance and owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, Vincent’s half-brother, Paul, scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune Logistics, sees the note from […]

Incredibly timely, CBRbookclub is two for two this year in books that are unexpectedly relevant

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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The themes of gender identity and the LGBTQ+ spectrum were always going to be relevant for Pride month and An Unkindness of Ghosts was thoughtfully chosen for this book club.  However, current events have given an added layer of pertinence.  Earlier this year, the CBR Book Club had chosen Station Eleven and then we found ourselves in a pandemic.  This month we are seeing protesting to change a racist police system (and institutionalized racism) and An Unkindness of Ghosts has an outright rebellion against the […]

Becky Chambers and the Quest for Righteous Representation

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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…because lord knows we cannot deal with any more from that dreadful she-who-must-not-be-named and her unquenchable desire to hurt the hearts and minds of the people who grew up with, admired, and felt welcomed by Harry Potter and company. People are who they say they are, and she-who-must-not-be-named can do us all a favor and shout her nonsense directly into a portal to hell. Anywho! Luckily, Becky Chambers is on the scene to raise our spirits through the roof and out into the beautiful and […]

This one is for thinking, not for fun

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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I wish I’d had more time with this novel but I had to give An Unkindness of Ghosts back to the library because someone else requested it. This means I may have had to rush reading a little and thus may not be as particular about the style and details as I might otherwise be. Here’s why this matters: this is not one of those books you read and enjoy. This is one of those books you read, either don’t exactly like or quite understand […]

Another good one to thank #CannonBookClub for

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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This was so good, but so hard. I did not go into it expecting fluff, but damn. I started reading it right after watching the first episode of the Snowpiercer TV show, and finished it on the last night we had a city-wide curfew because of protests and riots. An interesting cocktail of race/class topics. I usually use fiction as an escape, but knowing that so many of the awful things that happened on the ship happened for real, and then surfacing from the book […]



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