Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“For whom the wedding bells toll”

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged (2015) by Ayisha Malik

by 4 Comments

I wrote a review of Dorothy B. Hughes’s bleak noir novel Ride the Pink Horse (1946) as part of my Bingo this year, and said something about how it implodes comforting myths, and Emmalita commented, which was lovely, about how she came back to romance because sometimes people need escape from noir and need comforting myths (I paraphrase). I chewed this over in my head for a few weeks, and ended up digging out an unread romance novel I bought a while back, Sofia Khan […]

Maladaptive Daydreaming

Bunny by Mona Awad

by Leave a Comment

No matter how Samantha loathes the cliche of girls who make up the rest of her writing group, with their overwrought work and their insistence on referring to each other as ‘Bunny,’ she can’t help but get sucked into their strange world when they invite her to join them. This is a dark and satirical read which pokes plenty of fun at the pretentious streak that can run deep in the people who attend MFA programs – considering the author was one of them, the […]

To Catch A Killer…but make it funny

Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon

by Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR15Bingo: On the road. The characters here take a couple of road trips, don’t want to say where or why, lest I spoil a big part of the book. You know a writer is really good when you’re enjoying a book solely for the writing even if you couldn’t care less about the plot (and not much more about the characters). That’s high praise — or perhaps even damning with faint praise. But I really enjoyed the experience of reading Michelle […]

“It is a nice thought, is it not?” Beatrice asked. “That we can go forward as romantic lunatics forevermore?”

Romance Me, Viscount by Kate Archer

by Leave a Comment

Fanciful Beatrice Bennington insists she will accept only a lovesick man as her husband, but her neighbor Matthew, a viscount, is convinced that all she will end up with is a bruised heart – unless he can prevent it. Kate Archer has kicked off a new series of Regency romcoms about the Benningtons, a close knit family with an hopelessly romantic bend, due to the parenting of an eccentric aunt. I’ve always enjoyed Kate Archer’s romances, which generally lean very heavily into comedy, so I […]

Momma’s Turn to Kick Butt

Spy X Family vol 8 by Tatsuya Endo

by Leave a Comment

Manga parents are usually either absent or flat stereotypes; is some ways Loid and Yor’s relationship in Spy X Family goes that way; they are not absent parents to Anya, but they do play into the “I think I like you but I can’t possibly say that out loud” trope. Their marriage was faked because Yor needed a man in her life to draw attention away from herself (she’s an assassin) and Loid needed a wife to complete his fake family that he needs for […]

I third this fairy tale self aware fun

Cursed Princess Club v.1 by LambCat

by Leave a Comment

I saw Cursed Princess Club v.1 on a shelf and thought it looked interesting but left it there; then I was reminded of this title by a fellow Cannonballer, and decided that maybe I wanted to pick it up. Turns out I didn’t remember which store I’d seen it in, so I ordered it, then saw it on the shelf again two days before I got it. By this point, there was a second review. I agree with both of them. The art style is […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo