Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Dated and hard to stomach (DNF)

Rivals by Jilly Cooper

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This novel from the 1980s was recently turned into a series on Disney+ of all places. I watched it because it has a bunch of actors I really like in it, including David Tennant and Aiden Turner (who is sporting a ridiculous Super Mario mustache). If you miss the 1980s and enjoy adult, “Dallas” style TV, you should check it out. The first scene is two people having sex in the lavatory on the Concorde and a few scenes later we get full frontal male […]

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!

Upworthy Good People: Stories From the Best of Humanity by Gabriel Reilich, Lucia Knell

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I’ve had this book for a few months and now felt like the exact right time to read it. It would make a lovely holiday gift for someone on your list or for yourself. Upworthy is a popular contributor on social media, featuring stories of kindness submitted by the public. This volume, published by National Geographic, is a compilation of those stories divided into six chapters. The stories are mostly short — from a paragraph to 2-3 pages — but every one of them is […]

An extraordinary friendship (cannonball!)

The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien by John Hendrix

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The Mythmakers is a graphic story written for middle schoolers and older. The narrators of this biography/history are a lion (CS Lewis) and a Wizard (JRR Tolkien). The Mythmakers covers the life stories of each man in brief as well as going into detail on their ideas about storytelling and myths. Lewis and Tolkien shared some remarkable things in common but clearly they were two very different men whose friendship inspired them to write their greatest works. Yet their differences (other relationships, perhaps jealousy, differences […]

I finally read Fourth Wing (Bingo blackout, just before the deadline!)

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

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3.5 stars CBR16 Bingo: Smash (romantasy – I want it on record that I hate this term, by the way) Since this has been a huge success and had lots of attention on the TikToks and the like, I’m not even sure if I need to give much of a plot summary, but here goes: All her life, Violet Sorrengail has wanted to become a Scribe, like her father. However, her mother, a commanding general of the army of Navarre (the fictional country this is […]

Filled my Earth Day square! (Double bingo)

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

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CBR16 Bingo: Earth Day (while this novella is set off-Earth, a lot of the plot involves conservation efforts to try to reintroduce healthy biodiversity on Earth) Mossa is investigating the mysterious disappearance, most likely a suicide, on one of the human colonies on Jupiter. Mossa discovers that the missing man worked at the colony’s university, where conveniently for her and her further investigation, Mossa’s ex-girlfriend is a scholar working with others to try to recreate the ecosystems of Earth before it collapsed. Pleiti is surprised […]

More danger, calamity and heroism in space (Bingo)

Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

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CBR16 Sweet Books: Binge CBR16 Bingo: Celestial (set in space. I’m sure the characters observe lots of stars on their epic journeys through space) Spoiler warning: this is the third and final book in the Illuminae Files. A lot of stuff happened in the previous two novels, and it will be impossible to review this book without referring to some significant plot points. Additionally, I don’t see how this book would be a satisfying reading experience taken out of context. So if you aren’t up […]



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