Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Gentrification Meets Get Out in Brooklyn

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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I couldn’t put down this book after starting it. I burned through it in one and a half days, because sleep,  it it was engaging all the way through and the ending was insane. Loved the story, as it’s something that resonates with me (gentrification in NYC has gotten so bad and so many people have been displaced/ out priced because of it). I also loved the slight sci-fi elements of this book, a turn I was not expecting as it starts out as a […]

Dangled and Suspended in America

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

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First review ever and a confession! As a recovering humanities graduate student, I’m using CB14 as a way to re-teach myself how to read for pleasure, though that phase sits uncomfortably with me. I’m not sure ‘reading for pleasure’ really covers the full scope of what reading used to do for me and what I hope it will do in the future. The feeling of pleasure doesn’t capture at all what I experienced after finishing Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, and that […]

A city that comes alive

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

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The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin is a unique science fiction novel that brings cities to life. When a city becomes “great” a human inhabitant becomes its avatar. Except at the start of this novel, the homeless Black boy is chased into hiding. Enter the awakening of the human avatars of each of the five boroughs. The book follows each avatar as they discover their connection to the city. There is a mysterious entity that doesn’t want the city to fully become a great […]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the (reading) Weekend…

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg John-Barker, Julia Scheele (illustration)

Widespread Panic by James Ellroy

Quarry's Cut by Max Allan Collins

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Read a variety of books close to and over the weekend. Let’s check it out… Bleeding Edge **** This is a 2021 reread and it’s better than I remember. The ending disappoints but it’s still an entertaining, prescient novel. Pynchon warned us about Too Online culture and yet, here we are.   Times Square Red, Times Square Blue **** I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. And I liked it! Mostly. This is like a tale of two books. It’s two essays […]

This one was a win for me!

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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This was a little funky in places, a little shaky on its feet, but overall I really enjoyed reading it. This is billed as a thriller, but it also has elements of romance, horror, and mystery in it. I was super stoked when I heard Alyssa Cole was trying her hand at another genre (she normally writes romance, both historical and contemporary). I’ve been hit or miss with her books, particularly her contemporary stuff, so I was really curious to see what she could do […]

The Devil at Your Elbow

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

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I confess that I feel entirely inadequate to reviewing When No One is Watching. Thrillers are’t usually my genre. This thriller is layered with racial politics and I didn’t give myself nearly enough time to digest and process. As a white woman of a certain age, I assuredly missed nuances. Despite all of my reservations about myself as a reviewer for this book, I highly recommend it. Sydney Green has moved back to her mother’s brownstone in Brooklyn after a divorce and professional failure. Her mother’s […]



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