Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Fantasy shouldn’t make you feel your early middle age

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

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Bingo 20: Africa Children of Blood and Bone fits kind of into the Afro-futurism arena, and it’s also based on West African folklore/mythology and takes place is an African-esque setting. I was intrigued by the worldbuilding and some of the characters were interesting, but the plot and two of the three main characters were stupid teenagers making cringe-worthy teen angsty kinds of decisions. I know this is YA, but it’s kind of making me feel my age (barely 40+) a little. Zelie and her brother […]

Adventure! True love! Sex with monkeys!

Candide by Voltaire

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CBR15 BINGO: Europe, because Voltaire, he is very French It’s been so long since I read Candide that I can’t remember whether I was in high school or college at the time, yet the refrain, “Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds” has been stuck in my head like a 1980s Mountain Dew commercial. So when I was looking for a good candidate for the Europe BINGO category, I thought, “Why not revisit Voltaire?” To sum up Candide, a young […]

“A woman’s life is endless work and suffering.”

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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CBR15 BINGO: Asia & Oceania, because it focuses on characters in Korea and Japan Pachinko is the saga of a Korean family that spans 79 years, beginning in Korea in 1910 and ending in Japan in 1989. Being a weighty tome covering five generations, it’s hard to summarize the plot, though the main story begins with Sunja, the only surviving child of a struggling Korean couple who run a boarding house in Busan, Korea. Sunja’s father, Hoonie, has a cleft palate and a crooked leg, […]

CBR15 Bingo-Week 11 Check-in

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Welcome to the Week 11 wrap-up! Shana tova to all who celebrate! It’s also Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month. Cannonball Read and Oscar Issac encourage you to read diversely all year long, but if you have books to recommend by Hispanic/Latinx authors drop them in the comments.   You can view the kick-off post with the categories, rules and card here. The Players: ardaigle – 7 reviews BlackRaven – 25 reviews, BLACKOUT carmelpie – 19 reviews, 4 Bingos Carriejay – 11 reviews, 1 bingo CoffeeShopReader – 19 reviews, 3 bingos […]

Gay-Lesbian Solidarity

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

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CBR 15 Bingo – Queer Lives: Both the main characters in this book are queer, and one of the major plot-lines concerns itself with what must change in society for them to live their lives openly. Hundreds of years after the time of Arthur Pendragon, his descendent Arthur Delacey is betrothed to Gwen, the princess of England. If only she wasn’t more interested in the only female knight in the realm; if only he wasn’t more interested in her brother… I picked up this book because […]

Maybe don’t date a writer…

Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane

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Bingo Square: Adulthood, which gives me a bingo with Take the Skies, Relation’ship’, North America, You Are Here Roisin and Joe have been together since their early twenties, a part of a core group of friends that met working at a bookshop and get together regularly. Though their lives may be very different to when they met, the friends love meeting up, and this time it’s at a swanky country house for the weekend. Part of the excitement of the weekend is watching Joe’s new […]



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