Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“She’s been painting the devil on the wall and hoping we won’t know it from the real thing”

Painted Devils by Margaret Owen

by Leave a Comment

Now, spoilers here for the previous book; it is a direct continuation, after all.  The blurb for Painted Devils starts out fantastically: “Let’s get one thing straight—Vanja Schmidt wasn’t trying to start a cult.” With Little Thieves, I knew that it was a trilogy coming in, but by the end of the book, I wasn’t 100% certain where the story was going to be heading next. After ridding herself of a nasty curse, putting the displaced Princess Giselle back where she belonged, settling most of […]

“Being duped contaminates your entire sense of self.”

Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin

by Leave a Comment

For full disclosure (which feels extra important when discussing a book about deception) I did not finish this book. I made it to the halfway point and realized that the structure of the book wasn’t working for me, and I didn’t want to pick it back up. So, I didn’t.   Now, with that in mind, the reason I believe I felt that way was the way Abby Ellin blended the personal narrative of her lived experience being engaged to a con man with the research about deception through double lives and false identities was not landing for me. I would imagine that Ellin hoped by keeping her own […]

When you’re Evil (ish) and make a mean latte

teenagers, self-esteem, good and evil, fame villains, by Kennedy Tarrell

by Leave a Comment

When I saw the cover of Evil-ish by Kennedy Tarrell I figured it would be in the fantasy genre and I hoped for a graphic novel. The graphic novel hinting covers have fooled me often of late so I was hoping I was not going to be disappointed and instead of a good, old fashioned graphic novel, I would find myself reading a (gasp! clutching pearls) a NOVEL! Actually, that hyperbole works well for this cute, fun, and cozy familiar story. Our main character is […]

A Feminist serial killer romp

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

by Leave a Comment

Some people are offended by the idea of a woman taking the law into her own hands and murdering rapists. I am not one of those people, especially in this nearly Handmaid’s Tale existence we’re currently living in. Sorry not sorry. Our main characters are Scarlett Clark and Carly Schiller. One is the aforementioned murderess (and English professor), and the other is a kinda scared college student. We travel between these two ladies stories throughout the book. They both are associated with Gorman University. That’s […]

Tana French is back with a vengeance and a penchant for Wild West-isms, and I am HERE. FOR. IT. 

The Searcher by Tana French

by 2 Comments

This is a safe review; I’ll give you no spoilers and I’ll give you no major plot points- but I will let you know that no, we have not returned to the Dublin Murder Squad. While I found the departure disappointing in The Witch Elm, I found it thrilling here; the idyllic landscape filled with the insidious creep of small town communities. While we have not returned to the Murder Squad, we have returned to having a protagonist on the searching side of the law- and […]

A courtroom drama come to life.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

by Leave a Comment

After hearing Stevenson speak at the Global Leadership Summit and being moved to tears, I knew I needed to pick up his book, and it does not disappoint. Stevenson starts by telling his own story of becoming a lawyer and the events that prompted him to found the Equal Justice Initiative – an organization that provides legal counsel and advocates for those living on society’s margins, the poor, the wrongly convicted, and women & children who didn’t necessarily deserve the convictions they received. He paints […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo