Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It’s biblical!

Thunderhead: Arc of a Scythe Book 2 by Neal Shusterman

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Thunderhead, the second book in Shusterman’s Arc of a Scythe trilogy, is a gripping, exciting novel that sets the stage for major conflict in book 3, which I can’t wait to start. Book one introduced the reader to Shusterman’s futuristic world in which all evils seem to have been eradicated: illness, disease, war, crime, even death have been brought under control. In this world, people who meet unfortunate accidents or try to kill themselves can be revived. One is only truly dead when a scythe […]

Too Much and Never Enough

The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan

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CBR15passport recommended I know the Courtney Milan fans out there love this particular book (shoutout to Malin and Narfna) in the Brothers Sinister series and having now read it, I get it. It really is a fantastic novel with characters that I love and an historical set up that resonates still today. The Countess Conspiracy deals with matters of work/family, what “women’s work” is, and that feeling when you are both too much for people and still not enough no matter what you do. The […]

One of my year’s best already?

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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This historic drama has all the elements I love about a book – great characters and a compelling story that we follow through several generations of the same family, from Korea to Japan and beyond. In the background of Pachinko is Japan’s occupation of Korea and the experience of Koreans in Japan before, during, and after this occupation. We begin in the 1880s in Korea. Hoonie is the son of parents who run a boardinghouse for fisherman. Their lives are meager, but stable. Hoonie eventually […]

A nightmare at times, but ended like a dream.

City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer

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I have to admit, this book gave me at least one nightmare. It wasn’t the worst I’d ever had, but it involved dead puppies, so it was pretty bad. It’s not that I found the book to be scary, per se, but the premise is a great one for a horror movie: For reasons unknown, if people have a nightmare, they will wake up and become their nightmare. This could mean a variety of things. Some people just disappear, so no one really knows what […]

If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em!

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

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CBR15passport – a book you own I am making my way through the Brothers Sinister series and I have really enjoyed them all so far but this one might end up being my favorite because of its heroine. Jane Fairfield is a boss. She is life goals. The theme running throughout this novel is outsiders and how they function within power structures. The historical setting for this novel (1867) revolves around the mid-19th century franchise movement in England, that is, the efforts to expand voting […]

A warning on what we could become – Told as a futuristic thriller

Upgrade by Blake Crouch

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GENE EDITING IS A FEDERAL CRIME #GPA ONE MISTAKE CAUSED THE GREAT STARVATION #GPA #NEVERFORGET These are billboards you would pass if you lived in Denver Colorado in the far enough future that gene editing technology is much further advanced, but not so far that hashtags aren’t still a thing. The benefits to this technology include clothes made with spider silk and improvements in medicine and agriculture. But there is also a darker side, where dolls can be wrapped in human muscle and skin and […]



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