Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Obscure Sex Fantasies Don’t Have to Make Sense

Reckless Heir by Jenika Snow

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Listen, is this book good? No. Not really. It’s got a weird obsession with a particularly Victorian idea of virginity, and only the loosest possible concept of the physical logistics of real human sex. It’s distracting. These people need, like, so much sex ed. And also probably to see several doctors. And then to hire somebody to come and clean ALL of their furniture. But is this book compelling? Yeah, actually. Like, I get it. Until somewhat recently, I really didn’t see the appeal of […]

To help create a more empathetic society, this should be mandatory reading for middle grade readers (and everyone else, honestly)

Melissa by Alex Gino

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CBR15 Bingo: Bodies, Bodies – When Melissa was born everyone assumed she was a boy because of her body. Melissa is a girl but no one else knows she is, as it was assumed at birth she was a boy.  As a result, she was given the name of George.  Melissa is her secret name, admitted only to herself.  We are introduced to Melissa while her 4th grade classroom is reading Charlotte’s Web.  Melissa is moved to tears when Charlotte dies and the boys in […]

How can a novel about dementia be beautiful?

The Swimmers: A Novel by Julie Otsuka

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Cbr15bingo Adulthood I have reviewed Julie Otsuka’s previous two novels and loved them both. Otsuka is an amazingly talented writer. Her novels are not long; her sentences tend to be short but deliver beautiful imagery and subtle emotion. They are, as I have mentioned previously, like a pointillist painting in verbal form. Both When the Emperor Was Divine and The Buddha in the Attic, critically acclaimed winners of numerous awards, deal with Otsuka’s family history: immigration from Japan to California and the experience of US […]

“What would happen if I were to leave? No one notices the air they breathe.”

The Air You Breathe: A Novel by Frances De Pontes Peebles

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Cbr15bingo South America  Bingo! When I was looking around for a book to fill the South America square on my bingo card, I came across Frances De Pontes Peebles’ The Air You Breathe. NPR’s reviewer compared it to Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series and said that they tore through this novel in 2 nights. It is similar in some ways to Ferrante’s work, and I likewise finished it within days. The Air You Breathe is a soap opera of a story about friendship and […]

Masterful interweaving of past and present storylines to tell a slice of demon Kai’s life.

Witch King by Martha Wells

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CBR15 Bingo: Violence – “Kai looked at her through the black film of the veil, “You could say ‘be violent’ instead.”  Tahren, who Kai was beginning to suspect had a very dry sense of humor, patted his shoulder and said, “Be violent.”  Also, the Hierarchs are bent on committing genocide on a continent wide scale. Up to this point, my only exposure to Martha Wells was through The Murderbot Diaries.  I instantly fell in love with Murderbot and Well’s excellent writing.  I admire how she […]

Not for me.

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

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This one keeps souring in my mind the longer I’m away from it. The problem here is that I do not find stories about flighty people escaping from their responsibilities and the people counting on them–whether or not it was “their fault”–inherently interesting. In fact, I kind of hate them. Maybe other people get more kicks out of exploring their shitty unconnected left behind relationships with parental figures, but I find the whole thing unpleasant and not rewarding in any way. The one thing I […]



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