Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

Can you help us keep the lights on through 2021? We've raised $1,632 (126% of our $1,300 goal). Donate today and get a chance in the prize raffle!

> FAQ Home
> Tag: ElCicco

The characters have as much personality and development as chess pieces

The Queen’s Gambit: A Novel by Walter Tevis

by Leave a Comment

Author Walter Tevis had a knack for writing stories that seem to adapt well to the screen. The Queen’s Gambit, written in 1983, is a current hit series on Netflix, but Tevis, who died in 1984, also penned The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Hustler, and The Color of Money. I have not seen The Queen’s Gambit (or any of the other films) but I can say that the novel reads very much like a screenplay. He gives the reader action and tension on […]

Once upon a time there was a house…

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

by Leave a Comment

The Dutch House is a novel that has a fairy tale vibe to it. The house is, of course, central to the story and it’s kind of like a castle — it has a history of its own and a presence in the community. The Dutch House is a sign of wealth and a connection to the main characters’ past. Author Ann Patchett also gives the reader an evil stepmother, a missing queen, and a father/king who seems caught up in his material wealth while […]

Night Witches and Nazi Hunters!

The Huntress: A Novel by Kate Quinn

by Leave a Comment

A couple of Cannonballs ago, I reviewed Kate Quinn’s novel The Alice Network, a work of historical fiction about female spies and the two world wars. With The Huntress, Quinn returns to familiar ground. This riveting novel is set during WWII and the five years following the end of the war. Like The Alice Network, The Huntress features strong female characters who defy social norms, taking on jobs traditionally reserved for men and insisting on getting their due. It’s a long story that reads very […]

Dysfunction Junction

Sisters: A Novel by Daisy Johnson

by Leave a Comment

If you enjoy a novel with a questionable/unreliable narrator, then Sisters is for you. Clocking in at just over 200 pages, it is the kind of book you could get through in a day, and the plot is such that the reader will want to find out exactly what has happened and why. This makes it a little tricky to review without spoilers, but here we go. Teenagers July and September are sisters, with only 10-months difference in their ages. September is definitely the dominant […]

“We need new songs.”

The Silence of the Girls: A Novel by Pat Barker

by Leave a Comment

I recently reviewed Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles for CBR12 bingo, and I referred to it as a gateway into a genre I call “reimagined classics” or “classics fanfic”. The Silence of the Girls is yet another outstanding addition to this genre and it happens to overlap with The Song of Achilles, presenting several main characters and incidents from The Iliad from a very different perspective. Pat Barker imagines for us the life of Briseis, a Trojan princess who becomes Achilles’ slave. Through the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay