Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Four-Girl sees the other side of The Boxer Rebellion

Boxer & Saints V02 Saints by Gene Luen Yang

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A couple of spoilers are below. Saints is the second book in the two book graphic series, Boxer & Saints, by Gene Luen Yang. While it is shorter than Boxers, it still packs a lot of story. However, I would have liked to have seen more of back story of Four-Girl (or Vibiana as she will become known). We see how she is the unwanted fourth-girl of her family and how she defies the odds by living and having to deal with a strict, old-school Chinese family ruled by her Grandfather. We even see how her story connects with Boa’s […]

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4/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:124 |

The not so naked truth

The Chinese Emperor’s New Clothes by Ying Chang Compestine

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I saw the cover dragon of The Chinese Emperor’s New Clothes peeking up off the cart, hidden behind several other titles, it was sitting on. I enjoy a good story from Asia (particularly if it is about Japan or Chinese New Year). I was hoping this was a Chinese New Year story, instead what I got was the “true story” of the Emperor’s New Clothes. I also like alternative tellings of stories we know and this was a delightful treat. Ying Chang Compestine’s story differs from what we are used to. Different from the Western classic, where the tailors trick […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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3/29/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:101 |

Hooked Until the Epilogue

A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

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I was so, so about this book until literally the last three pages. Don’t read them. Skip the Epilogue, it’ll just ruin the previous 300 pages. Why am I so angry about 3 pages? Because the rest of this book was so freaking good and so absolutely timely and necessary, that to be so stupendously let down in 3 short pages just felt wrong. Where was the editor on that one? But I digress, A River of Stars follows Scarlett Chen as she finds herself an unwilling immigrant on a visitors’ visa to California. Scarlett falls for her married boss […]

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8/6/2018 's CBR10 Review No:15 |

Peony in Love

Peony in Love by Lisa See

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Peony in Love was, well, more the story of how a girlish obsession could turn into a one-note bit of character development.  Sadly, Peony is a boring young lady, rich and well-bred, and betrothed to a rather mushy-headed young man.  They meet once, never once trading identities (it’s once a night for three nights, actually, but they do so little they could have done it all in one night) and based on that, Peony is In Love.  Her mild obsession with the Chinese opera “The Peony Pavilion” pops out in full force, and she begins to skip meals and self-care, […]

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3/25/2017 's CBR9 Review No:4 |

She’s a working girl/She’s single and free

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

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All right, I haven’t reviewed in ages, so I’m just gonna jump right into it. I read Factory Girls months ago – in April, to be exact – and it has just been stuck in my craw. The book is the work of Leslie Chang, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was based in China, and spent years following the lives of women working in factories in Guangdong province. As Westerners, much of what we know about these factories come from stories about exploitation in the Apple iPhone factories or the unpaid overtime work in garment factories producing for Insert-High-Street-Brand-Name-Here. […]

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10/17/2016 's CBR8 Review No:6 |

In Russia, dragon flies you

Blood of Tyrants: A Novel of Temeraire by Naomi Novik

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(note before I start this review: HALF CANNONBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!) At this point, Blood of Tyrants being the eighth book in the Temeraire series, I am still very much on board the Temeraire train, but reading all of them in a row without the benefit of waiting between books (other than brief stints when the library is out of copies of whatever’s next) has meant that a certain fatigue has set in. I think I said in an earlier review that Novik has an incredible way of surprising me just when I think I can’t be surprised anymore, and that is absolutely […]

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7/5/2016 's CBR8 Review No:26 |

Temeraire Down Under

Tongues of Serpents: A Novel of Temeraire by Naomi Novik

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Let’s be real: Temeraire is the Forrest Gump of dragons. He goes everywhere, just when the action where he happens to be is most important. World history hinges on his behavior. He meets all the famous people and gets to be on a first name basis with all of them. And we get to go with him and see the entire world. THE ENTIRE WORLD! This time, we get on a dragon transport and travel with Will Laurence and Temeraire to Australia. Having had a whole bunch of martial success in knocking Napolean back a few steps in the previous […]

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6/25/2016 's CBR8 Review No:23 |

Never get involved in a land war in Asia

Black Powder War (Temeraire, Book 3) by Naomi Novik

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I will admit, I thought I might be out-smarting these books, with the formula all figured out, but this one, the third in the “Temeraire” series, totally took me on a ride. Delightful, surprising, and exciting. Well played, Novik. Black Powder War bothers with barely any passage of time after Throne of Jade. The company is still in China, preparing for travel back to England, when natural disaster and politics coincide and intervene, causing Laurence and Temeraire to take their scrappy crew of aviators overland towards Istanbul to pick up some dragon eggs that the British government has arranged to […]

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5/22/2016 's CBR8 Review No:18 |


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