Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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A Love Letter to Books That Left Me Wanting

The Book Censor’s Library by Bothayna Al-Essa

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My thoughts at the end of this book were a pretty far cry from what they were at the beginning. I was really excited to start this short dystopian novel about censorship and a Book Censor who becomes a reader. We dive into this journey with the very first line, which was a pleasant surprise: “As the Book Censor awoke one morning, filled with others’ words, he found himself transformed into a reader.” We get a little bit of a flashback to how Zorba the […]

Books can have legacy sequels too, right?

Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger

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This was an ARC. Thank you to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press. My opinions are entirely my own. This book is on sale now. In recent years, legacy sequels, coming out several decades after the previous movie, have become popular. Some are surprisingly great, like Creed and Blade Runner 2049, while others make you wonder why they exist in the first place (The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Practical Magic 2: Family Legacy, to name two that I watched over the summer). Life Out of […]

Imagination is real

The Book Censor’s Library: A Novel by Bothayna Al-Essa

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This is a wonderful book about imagination, books, libraries, and censorship. It’s a love song to some literary classics and a picture of a dystopian not-too-distant future where most literature is banned and burned. How far would you go to preserve the ideas and literary creations that have formed us? What is worth saving? What price would you pay? The characters in this book have no names; rather they have titles or descriptors. The main character is the Book Censor, a man who wants only […]

Mars is a planet divided and so am I about my feelings about the book

Total THB, Volume 1 by Paul Pope

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All I am going to say about Total THB, Volume 1 by Paul Pope is that each person has their own feelings on this combination of 1984, all other dystopian stories, Brave New World, cyberpunk, coming of age story. Okay, I lie…… I will say more.  It had some WOW that’s awesome moments. And then some WTF ??????????????? moments (I mean there is a story arc where a Steinway piano is a sentient special agent assassin). And then Whaaaaaaaaat is going on moments and it […]

This is royaly F’d up and down and sideways

V for Vendetta by Alan Morre, David Lloyd and DC Comics

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There is always a book that draws me in; wanting me to read it; teasing me; laughing at me because it knows I will never take the leap out of my comfort zone and plunge in. And V for Vendetta was one of those books. My excuses for not reading? Too long, too dark, too old school, too popular, what a dull and boring (and a little off putting) cover. My excuse for finally picking it up to read? Nothing more than there was a […]

Justice for Wrongs Done

Soul Machine by Jordana Globerman

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There are bumps in the actual story arc of Soul Machine by Jordana Globerman. It feels as if this was book two or there was some sort of introduction in a previous book. We are never truly told what The Soul is (outside of assuming it is one’s “spiritual” soul), what the machine our cast of character use actually does, who are the customers of the company (outside of people, but why do they need them is not explained) and the characters, especially their backgrounds, […]



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