Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

As I got older and mercifully more aware of what a precious gift a healthy working body is, I felt ashamed and bewildered that I could have treated mine so badly.

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

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CBR18 Bingo: Left – Feeling left behind by friends, by partners, and being unable to achieve the next perceived life milestone that everyone seems to be completing. The transitional state of a long journey has always seemed to me the most romantic and magical of places to find yourself in; marooned in a cozy pod of your own thoughts, suspended in midair, traveling through a wad of silent, blank pages between two chapters. ― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love I gave almost all […]

Harlot’s Bay: A bit hit and miss

At First Spite by Olivia Dade

Second Chance Romance by Olivia Dade

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CBR Bingo: Season – Second Chance Romance is set in autumn, and we see the characters dressing for the season on at least one of their dates. I really like (most of) Olivia Dade’s Spoiler Alert series, so I decided to give her other work a try. I ended up DNFing At First Spite, but did finish Second Chance Romance even if I was a bit unenthusiastic about it. At First Spite Even from the beginning, I didn’t love this one. The premise is that the […]

Heavy on Quirkiness, Light on Depth

Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer

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CBR18 BINGO: Wheels I have been wanting to try Andrew Sean Greer, and this really piqued my interest when it came out. Plus it has such a charming cover. Alas, it did not meet my hopes or expectations. The narrator is semi-nameless. He is called Giovedì by his employer, but that’s not his real name. He was hired just out of college to travel to Italy and archive the contents of Villa Coco, owned by the Baronessa Lisabetta (AKA Coco). While there, he hopes to […]

Putin Hates It

Pioneer Summer by Elena Malisova, Katerina Silvanova, and Anne O. Fisher

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DNF I was very excited to read this book after spotting it on the NEW table in a local bookstore. With the tagline, “Putin hates it,” how could I not be interested? Released as fan fiction and then formally published in Russia in 2021, this book became a sensation on Tiktok and gained widespread popularity with Russian-speaking readers. The Russian government took notice and, along with other popular books and content about LGBTQ characters and themes, banned it. The government claimed that it violated a […]

Groan

The Firm by John Grisham

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It was the eyes, the cold black eyes with layers of black wrinkles around them. Great eyes. Unforgettable eyes. His hair was white and thin on top with thickets around the ears, and the whiteness contrasted sharply with the rest of his face. When he spoke, the eyes narrowed and the black pupils glowed fiercely. Sinister eyes. Knowing eyes. ― John Grisham, The Firm You have only two choices, Mitch. Join us, or die. ― John Grisham, The Firm CBR17 Bingo: Borrow (Bingo from Arts to […]

I give up

Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts

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I think La Nora’s next book should be about serial killers who flip houses and not the cops who catch them. There were two places in Hidden Nature where it felt like Nora Roberts was interested in what she was writing – the home renovation and the icky serial killers. Ok, there was a third area where she perked up – when she was writing about dogs. But, I think we all agree that the dogs and the serial killers should be kept separate. Her […]



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