Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

A Range of Books From Brutal to Cozy

An Ember in The Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

James by Percival Everett

The Tea Dragon Society by K. O'Neill

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An Ember in the Ashes Sabaa Tahir swiftly establishes the brutality of the world the characters are living in, in this first of a 4-book YA fantasy series. The Martials conquered Scholar lands 500 years ago and the Scholars are second-class citizens who are frequently enslaved. Elite Martial soldiers known as Masks are also treated violently as they go through their training at Blackcliff. The book alternates POVs between Laia, a Scholar, and Elias, a Mask who has nearly completed his training. They come into […]

My most surprising 5-star read of the year (also Cannonball, finally)

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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Monthly Keyword 26: Bright Reading the Rainbow: Yellow CBR18 Bingo: Versus (The brave, tenacious and determined women vs the spineless and depraved serial killer Official plot synopsis: Tallahassee, 1978. Sorority president Pamela Schumacher wakes to a shocking scene of implausible violence and death, and is drawn into a mystifying crime that grips the nation for decades . . . In Seattle, Tina Cannon connects her best friend’s disappearance to the Tallahassee tragedy, and is convinced that a single man is responsible. Determined to find justice, […]

“There’s no point in denying it. Anger is my faithful companion.”

After We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

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CBR18 Bingo: Justice – Beatriz spends the whole novel searching for justice for the death of her brother and her family’s exile from Cuba after the rise of Fidel Castro. Though Beatriz and her family have found safety in Palm Beach after fleeing from Cuba, she has not found peace, and rages about the death of her twin brother and the policies of Castro. Working with the CIA gives her a chance to get revenge, but it may also complicate her relationship with politician Nick. […]

The Island of Sea Women

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

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The sea is better than a mother. You can love your mother, and she still might leave you. You can love or hate the sea, but it will always be there. Forever. The sea has been the center of her life. It has nurtured her and stolen from her, but it has never left. We took a vacation to South Korea and our first stop was Jeju for a 4-day thru-hike. This is the perfect book to read on an airplane to Jeju. Mi-ja and […]

“She felt she was a bottomless pit of memories, and she was only fifteen. What on earth must it be like when you reached the Duchy’s age? You’d hardly be able to think at all for them; it would be like having so much furniture in a room that there was nowhere left to move.”

Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard

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CBR18 Bingo: Season – The Cazalets are coming into a new season of their lives with the war on, the youngest son Rupert away in France, and new members of the family being born while others are dying. World War Two is now on, and come crashing into the lives of the Cazalets, a clan of well-off English wood dealers. However, they still have their own domestic dramas to deal with closer at home. This is the second book in the Cazalet Chronicles- I read the […]

Green Island, Grey People

Caribee by Christopher Nicole

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CBR18 Bingo: Versus – Lots of conflict in this book – between the English and the Caribs and the Spanish, but also (with a strong Oedipal flavor) the conflict between father and son. Finding himself out of favor with the king, Tom Warner and his young son embark for the New World, hoping to find their fortunes in rainy Guyana. But it turns out that they may lay instead in lush green St. Kitt’s – if they can manage to keep alive, of course. About […]



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