Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

This book also has a character called “the cutie bandit,” which is amazing.

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

by 3 Comments

When I tell you I was not interested in this book at all and then I zoomed through it in a day and a half. It was a book club pick, and I’d read and liked/loved I think three of her books before this one, but the synopsis just didn’t call to me. But, book club pick, so I reserved it from the library. This book is the epitome of what I mean when I say that writing style is the most important thing in […]

Strong Concept, Uneven Writing

Burn Down Master's House by Clay Cane

by Leave a Comment

I really expected this book to be 5 stars and ended up mildly disappointed when it didn’t live up to that expectation. Clay Cane set out to write a slave narrative focusing on moments of rebellion. The novel is divided into 4 lengthy chapters, each of which focuses on 1-2 characters and the rebellion they pursue. It is a book filled with violence because the enslaved characters go through hell before bringing violent justice upon the enslavers. The plot carries the book, with the actual […]

Historical Fiction Graphic Novel in Translation

Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832  by Wilfrid Lupano, Stéphane Fert (illustrator)

by Leave a Comment

Along with From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea I picked up Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832 from the library to help (hopefully) re-set my reading brain. This is a graphic novel in translation (originally written and published in French) which is focuses in on a more unknown bit of American history. I feel comfortable calling it such as this is one of my general areas and this school and the court cases surrounding it had missed me, even though Crandall v. State (of Connecticut) was one of the first civil rights […]

A perfectly fine book, just not for me.

Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson

by Leave a Comment

Honestly, this is a good book, and I knew when I bought it that things might turn out this way, but I wanted to give it a shot. This is a vampire story, and above all, a story of revenge. I enjoy a good revenge story now and then, but this is the type I do not care for: one that takes its characters to places they cannot come back from. Also, depressing. Specifically: SPOILERS their journey of vengeances leads our two main characters, an […]

“There are so many stories, big and small. We need to tell them all.”

The Hidden Book by Kirsty Manning

by Leave a Comment

The Hidden Book is told in alternating timelines. In one, a young man named Nico is incarcerated at Mauthausen*, a German concentration camp in northern Austria, near Linz. He manages to befriend a young village girl named Lena who lives with her parents and her developmentally disabled sister just outside the gates of the camp. Nico’s friend Matteo is the camp photographer, and is tasked with documenting the activities of the camp for some of the SS officers. Nico and Matteo conspire to smuggle a […]

“What else is life but a string of outcomes beyond our control?”

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vols. 1-3 by Beth Brower

by Leave a Comment

This is a wild thing to say, but I’m saying it, so stay with me. This series is Dungeon Crawler Carl for the Jane Austenites. I’m not even finished with it yet and I already know that. It’s the kind of story you read once, probably in a very short time, then immediately go back in for a re-read or five. This story is—aside from having lovable characters and a certain anti-authoritarian bent—nothing like Dungeon Crawler Carl. And yet. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo