Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

The Story Will Be Told

Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490 by Edwidge Danticat

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CBR18 Bingo: Steal – This book tells the story of the arrival of the first conquistadors in the New World, and the start of their wanton rampaging and theft of land and gold from the people who already live there. Anacaona, the niece of one of the five chiefs of Hispaniola, is busy preparing to one day succeed her uncle and considering marriage with another chief. But when she begins to get strange premonitions of danger, and strange white men appear on their shores, she […]

Anti-colonial historical fantasy

Aicha by Soraya Bouazzaoui

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I had such high hopes for Aicha because I love angry women, mythology, and historical fiction, so this sounded like it’d be exactly my jam. Unfortunately all those expectations fell flat. I wouldn’t say this is a bad book, and there were elements I enjoyed, I just don’t know that I’d say I enjoyed the book as a whole. Aicha is about the youngest daughter of a weapons smith, who is also a rebel, and how she also fights for her people’s liberation. But inside […]

Blood and Sand and Diamonds

The Burning Shore by Wilbur Smith

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When Centaine de Thiry is left destitute and pregnant after the death of her fiancé Michael Courtney during an aerial battle in World War One, she decides to make her way to Africa, where they had planned to live together after the war. This is the first book in this subsection of Wilbur Smith’s most long-running series, which follows the exploits of the Courtney family in South Africa. Like all the other books, it includes lots of adventure, drama, and some spectacular descriptions of the […]

An Adults Only Lord of the Flies

Batavia by Peter FitzSimons

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The Batavia, the pride of the Dutch East India Company, is on its maiden voyage from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies when it wrecks off just off the coast of western Australia. But the tragedy of the Batavia stems not from the forces of nature, but from the evil in men’s hearts. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts about this story in the last couple years, and was so curious about this strange, dark story, part survival story and part true crime, that I decided […]

Brutally beautiful historical fantasy

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang

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I was immediately drawn to this book, but struggled with eyeball reading, so I was so glad when I got an advance listening copy as well, especially so I wouldn’t be butchering the Chinese words and intonations. This is really intense and deals with a lot of really difficult topics, and it’s hard to say any of the characters (though especially Ba) were likable, but the ending left me with a feeling of hope and healing. Told through three (four?) perspectives, A Beast Slinks Towards […]

“My great-grandfather was a boxing champion…and I can’t stop sparring ghosts.”

Heavyweight by Solomon J. Brager

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The back cover copy called Heavyweight “provocative,” which I felt was a bit much. Then I found myself getting provoked, which was amusing to me. Heavyweight is a graphic memoir that is ostensibly an attempt to find out the history of Brager’s great-grandfather Erich Levi, but expands beyond that into an examination of how history is portrayed and passed down, inequality, gentrification, colonialism, racism, and so on. There is a big focus on research and what the limits are of what research can provide us. It’s a sweeping […]



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