Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

For those with a literary sweet tooth

Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel by Shelby Van Pelt

by Leave a Comment

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a best selling novel that is apparently being turned into a movie starring Sally Field. I’m sure it will be very sweet because the story is cute/nice/sweet — choose your bland compliment. It was fine and a quick read, but I just didn’t love it. The character development (or lack thereof) was probably the biggest obstacle for me, and that issue contributed to a pretty thin plot in places.  The story is told by three narrators. Cameron Cassmore is a 30-year-old […]

Talking about my generation

Kills Well With Others: A Novel by Deanna Raybourn

by Leave a Comment

In the sequel to Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn takes us on another thrill ride with four retired assassins and a couple of their significant others. Billie, Helen, Natalie and Mary Alice have been working together since the late 1970s for a secret organization called the Museum. Originally, the Museum was meant to track down Nazis and the works of art that they had stolen and smuggled out of Europe. Nowadays, the Museum, under the direction of a very competent young woman named […]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

by Leave a Comment

Format in which I consumed this book: hardcover Did I like it/love it/hate it? Liked it What’s it about? Evelyn Hugo is a famous actress now in her 80s, I think. She wants to do an interview, rare for her, to promote a charity auction. She contacts a magazine and insists on working with Monique, a journalist who is not well known, and not high enough on the pay scale for Evelyn’s request to make sense. When Monique meets with Evelyn to begin the interview, […]

With friends like these…

In My Dreams I Hold A Knife: A Novel by Ashley Winstead

by Leave a Comment

If you like murder mysteries and want a quick read, this book could fit the bill. I found it hard to put down, even though (maybe because?) the characters are all pretty terrible people. Main character and narrator Jessica Miller is looking forward to her ten year college reunion, but when she returns to Duquette, some old ghosts get stirred up and the unsolved murder of her best friend and roommate will dominate the weekend’s activities. Could one of her friends, the infamous East House […]

This feels like the second book of a trilogy but it isn’t

A Forest, Darkly: A Novel by A.G. Slatter

by Leave a Comment

A Forest, Darkly is both a fantasy and a mystery. The Great Forest, where the action takes place, is a frontier where civilization seems to be slowly encroaching. Old magic and creatures are still very much alive here, and the presence of a witch has been tolerated by villagers for generations, but the world is changing. The village has grown since main character Mehrab, resident witch, arrived 20 years ago, and lately, something dark and insidious seems to be stalking the forest. This would be […]

Mostly Amusing, Sometimes Confusing

Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, The Loyal Opposition Trilogy Book 1 by K.J. Parker

by Leave a Comment

As a product of the Catholic school system from second grade through university, I have sat through A LOT of religion and theology classes. Heresies, schisms, saints, martyrs, whatever, I feel pretty well versed in church history. While KJ Parker’s Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead is a fantasy novel, it leans hard into Christian church history and theology, setting up some good old fashioned good versus evil scenarios, but it’s not always clear who is good or evil. That’s intentional, but while Parker […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo