Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

very very belated ARC review :(

Pride & Provocateur: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Variation in Dildo, Newfoundland by Melissa Yi

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CBR Bingo: Friends, obviously, as the Bennet family here are a found family Hi to fellow Cannonballer Melissa Yi! I’m a strident P&P fangirl, and have rather warm feelings to all of the various adaptations that I’ve encountered along the way. I also have strong opinions about what makes for a good adaptation, because I think people misunderstand the key elements of a P&P vs a story with P&P beats. One thing I think Yi gets absolutely right is that the Bennet sisters don’t actually […]

and now, for something slightly different

Change Your Win Conditions by Vee (Vera_DragonMuse)

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Bingo: 26, as this fic was started right at the start of 2026! I am way behind in my reading for this year, and it’s obviously because I have spent many hours consuming many hundreds of thousands of words of Heated Rivalry fanfiction. It happens to me, every so often, that I end up really into a specific pop culture property and then just ~*nip*~ over to AO3 (or, back in Ye Olde Days, FF.net and LJ) to see what’s there and, like, ooh here’s […]

If Poetry Could Kill

The Poet Emperess by Shen Tao

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I have both ElCicco and Narfa to thank for bringing this book to my attention earlier this year. Completely worth it and up there with The Everlasting and The Raven Scholar as one of the best page turner’s of the year so far.  Very mild spoilers below: This is another one of those fantasy novels that carries over a close Venn diagram with another sub genre—in this case politics intrigue. If you like stories about court politics, this will likely appeal. In the kingdom of […]

Come on, what’s a farewell threesome between friends?

One More Gift: A spicy snowed-in novella by Holly June Smith

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CBR18 Bingo: And – Saskia gets both her ex and her new love. Saskia is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her one-time-college-hookup-turned-best-friend Henry. She’s decorated her English country cottage for Christmas, and Henry is arriving from New York to spend the holidays with her. Saskia is going through an amicable divorce with her husband, Casper. She and Henry have decided to give romance a chance since they have always loved each other and feel safe with one another. Moments after Henry arrives, a second pair […]

It’s true, they do do that

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

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We Solve Murders is the first book I read this year, and still the best. It’s by Richard Osman, writer of the Thursday Murder Club series (which I have since started, and which I also like, but not as much). It’s also probably the first of a new series but so far the only entry. The central pair of sleuths here are a father- and daughter-in-law, which is at least fresh. The daughter-in-law is a high-class bodyguard who’s protecting a super-successful later-in-life author whose main […]

When someone tries to put all their ideas and research into one novel

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

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Bingo Square: Justice (there’s systemic oppression, a character unjustly punished for crime, ideas about legality vs morality) Southern Lit Book club is starting back up for the fall session and this was the first book. While I enjoyed The Help when it came out, I also think the later critiques were valid, and wasn’t exactly in a huge hurry for this one but book club was a nice excuse to read this. And it’s a bit of mixed reaction – it’s fine but I was […]



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