Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“It’s true on a technicality. I’m being held unlawfully. I didn’t commit the crime for which I’ve been convicted. But if you look at it another way, I deserve to be here. I did a lot of other shitty things, for which I wasn’t punished.”

The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

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I wish I would have known this was a retelling of The Brothers Karamazov before I purchased this book and got all excited about it. I probably never would have picked it up. There is a reason that I have never read any of Dostoyevsky’s stuff (or Tolstoy for that matter). The Family Chao follows the titular family, owners of a Chinese restaurant in a small town in America. The parents of the family are immigrants from China, and there are three sons. When the […]

Art Is Power

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

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I’m not sure I can discuss this book coherently. I’ve started and stopped and rewritten this review so many times I’m starting to feel dizzy. How do I convey the perfect writing, the depth of emotion, the complex characters, the history and meaning and joy and sorrow Grace D. Li has managed? In a freaking heist novel??!? The audacity! Let’s start with the basic plot: steal back the five bronze zodiac animal heads that were looted after the burning of Beijing’s Old Summer Palace and are […]

Way Down to Chinatown

This Is A Bust by Ed Lin

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One of the joys of reading is discovering a new author that you like and want to explore more into their catalog. I found that with Ed Lin. Wow what a book. This is one I’ve had on my shelf for a while that I decided to finally tackle. And I loved it. Yes in some sense it is a mystery but the mystery is only part of the story. The real story is Robert Chow, Chinese-American, Chinatown product, Vietnam washout, tokenized NYPD patrolman. Through […]

Beautiful story of sexual identity awakening and first love

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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And then she asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a beautiful glimpse into a moment in time of a sexual identity awareness and first love, amidst the Red Scare of McCarthyism in 1950’s San Francisco.  Sexual feelings awaken for the first time within Lily Hu but everything she has been taught says it […]

Getting Steamy in San Francisco: #CannonBookClub2022!

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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Fog rolling in off the Pacific! Illicit kisses in smoky clubs! Steamed buns filled with jammy pork and spices! What can I say about Last Night at the Telegraph Club that Malinda Lo didn’t already say with total confidence and care when she wrote the book? She felt as if speaking would ruin everything-then they’d have to put a name to this feeling between them, this rapidly growing heat and longing that made the sliver of air between their bodies charged with electricity. She could swear […]

Sweet story about the joys and challenges of friendship, identity, and privilege

Stargazing by Jen Wang

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Stargazing is the most recent graphic novel from Jen Wang of The Prince and the Dressmaker fame.  My 10 year old spotted Stargazing at San Diego Comic Con and we had to bring it home.  She read it in one sitting and then began insisting that I needed to read it.  The Prince and the Dressmaker blew me away so I had high expectations for Stargazing, and Wang did not disappoint.  Once again she explores themes of friendship, identity, and privilege. Christine Hong is Chinese American in a […]



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