Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“People – a group comprised of every sapient species, organic or otherwise – were chaos, but chaos was good. Chaos was the only sensible conclusion.”

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

by Leave a Comment

Monthly Keyword Challenge 26: Ground Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book that came out more than 4 years ago Defeating the Goblin TBR 26: The Gizmo Book (A Sci-fi or Dystopian book) Reading Rainbow – Indigo cover The planet of Gora doesn’t have much to recommend itself to anyone, except as a stopover for travellers to other, more interesting parts of space. Travellers can rest, refuel, eat, restock their supplies and update any permits that might be required. It’s like an interstellar truck stop between […]

Mostly Amusing, Sometimes Confusing

Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, The Loyal Opposition Trilogy Book 1 by K.J. Parker

by Leave a Comment

As a product of the Catholic school system from second grade through university, I have sat through A LOT of religion and theology classes. Heresies, schisms, saints, martyrs, whatever, I feel pretty well versed in church history. While KJ Parker’s Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead is a fantasy novel, it leans hard into Christian church history and theology, setting up some good old fashioned good versus evil scenarios, but it’s not always clear who is good or evil. That’s intentional, but while Parker […]

“In-Yo would say that the war was won by silenced and nameless women, and it would be hard to argue with her.”

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

by Leave a Comment

Nowhere Bingo 26: Novella Dark Corner Selection: January 2026 Chih is a young cleric from the Singing Hills monastery who travels around the country searching for stories and history. At the shores of Lake Scarlet, Chih finds the abandoned dwelling where the former Empress In-Yo (the titular Empress of Salt and Fortune) spent her many years in exile. Chih encounters the elderly Rabbit, one of the Empress’s former handmaidens, who tells Chih stories of her own past and how it intertwined with that of the […]

When the walls come tumbling down

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): A Novel by Rabih Alameddine

by 1 Comment

This is a surprising and wonderful novel, managing to bring some light and humor to a grim setting. The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is indeed about main character Raja and his mother Zalfa, but it is also about the modern history of Beirut and its people. Back in the 1980s when I was in high school and college, Beirut was constantly on the news due to the violence and chaos that seemed to be a part of normal life […]

This is a story about friendship but guard your heart

The List of Suspicious Things: A Novel by Jennie Godfrey

by Leave a Comment

This debut novel by Jennie Godfrey was inspired by her childhood in Yorkshire in the 1970s when a murderer stalking women came to be known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Godfrey’s father had actually been an acquaintance of the man later arrested for the murders. In The List of Suspicious Things, main character Miv is a 12-year-old Yorkshire girl who decides that she is going to conduct her own investigation into the identity of the Ripper. Through Miv, her family, friends and neighbors, Godfrey reveals to […]

A captivating tale based on a myth

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

by Leave a Comment

Special thanks to NTE for gifting me this book in the last holiday book exchange! I had mentioned enjoying retold myths, and Daughter of the Moon Goddess is one of NTE’s favorite such stories. It is based on the Chinese myth of Chang’e, the Moon Goddess. This was a myth I was completely unfamiliar with, but I loved learning about this tale. Sue Lynn Tan takes the reader into a colorful, enchanting and dangerous world where immortals engage in subterfuge and violence to promote their […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo