Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

A single interesting character and a predictable plot made this a dull read.

The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy #1) by Marie Rutkoski

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CBR18 Bingo: Justice – Arin and his co-conspirators rise up against the occupying forces and enact justice upon them. She remembered how her heart, so tight, like a scroll, had opened when Arin kissed her. It had unfurled. If her heart were truly a scroll, she could burn it. It would become a tunnel of flame, a handful of ash. The secrets she had written inside herself would be gone. No one would know. ― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner’s Curse Music made her feel as […]

“And sometimes focusing on what you can control is the only way to lessen the pang in your chest when you think about the things you can’t.”

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

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This is my first Elizabeth Acevedo and I’m happy to report that the hype is real. I think that I’ve been putting off reading Acevedo because I’ve become a little allergic to YA and I was afraid that it would prevent me from enjoying her work. But Read Harder has a task for reading a YA book by a Latine author this year so with a little encouragement With the Fire on High made its way to my to read list for the year.   With […]

Very Mixed Bag

Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane

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Bingo: Steal. Little girl is stolen from her mother. I read Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River recently and found it a solid thriller. I thought I’d pick up another of his books, Gone Baby Gone, but it wasn’t nearly as good. It seems the book is a part of a series featuring two private investigators, Patrick and Angie. Professional partners as well as lovers, they are brought in on a case about a missing girl. The girl’s mother is negligent and leaves the girl alone while […]

Putting the Sex in Texas

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

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Listen for the Lie, by Amy Tintera, is the other book that I took with me on vacation last week, as a backup to The Ferryman. Like The Ferryman, it is a mystery. Unlike The Ferryman, the ending wasn’t particularly interesting, exciting or unexpected. Instead, the final chapters of Listen for the Lie were just super horny. In fact, the whole book was surprisingly sexually charged for being about a non-sexual murder. It’s almost like someone told the author that sure, murder is okay, but […]

It’s The End of the World As We Know It

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin

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I went on vacation last week, and took The Ferryman, by Justin Cronin, to read on the plane. I wasn’t sure what to expect; I had only read The Passage trilogy by Cronin previously, and picked this up on a whim while at my local used bookstore. But I’m glad I did. I found it to be an excellent blend of sci-fi and mystery. The Ferryman takes place on the hidden, secluded archipelago of Prospera. The archipelago consists of three very, very different islands. First […]

If these books have anything in common, it’s that women don’t need men to take care of them

Chopping Spree by Angela Sylvaine

The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu

The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson

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Cbr18 Bingo – Season: these books were my prizes for giving to Locus Magazine during their fundraising season. And I’m posting this review during the season for horror books. Chopping Spree by Angela Sylvaine, the cheerful goth – my expectations were very low for this mall slasher, a sub-genre I didn’t know existed. The novella follows Penny through one night as she uncovers the conspiracy and mystery of her small town and its mall, which seems to survive on 80s nostalgia in the era of […]



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