Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I think I’ve read this book at least four times

The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike

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The Season of Passage is one of my favorite books from my teen years. I had always loved Christopher Pike as a teen, because he felt a little more sophisticated than R.L.Stine, who was the other “horror” author for my age group. I guess I probably loved this book from the beginning because the main character’s name is Lauren, which is also my name.  It’s just a great book overall though.  You get to know the characters enough to care about them before anyone is put in peril, which I appreciate it.  Also, there’s a huge horror component along with […]

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12/28/2018 's CBR10 Review No:59 |

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Obscura by Joe Hart

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So I really liked this book. I read a series either earlier this year or last year by Joe Hart, and it was very different from this book.  I guess that series was still science fiction-y, like this one, but it still felt very different. We begin this book by meeting Gillian, as she’s basically getting into a car accident with her husband.  We learn that he has this terrible brain disease called Losian’s, that’s similar to Alzheimer’s, but affects all ages.  He’s starting to forget her, and he will eventually become irritable and violent.  Right now though, he’s just […]

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7/27/2018 's CBR10 Review No:36 |

More Pink, Please

The Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown

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So, this was a re-read of this series for me and I have to say that I loved it as much this time as I did the first time around. Pierce Brown created an absolutely fascinating world for this series, and he did so beautifully. The books center on Darrow, a “Red” who works in the mines below the surface of Mars. The Reds are mining a material that will allow Mars to be terraformed so that humans can successfully colonize it. It is important work and work that Darrow is happy to be doing as he understands its importance. Except […]

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11/27/2017 's CBR9 Review No:32 |

Here am I sitting in a tin can

The Martian by Andy Weir

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 Writing this review from my husband’s truck because a) sleeping baby and b) that’s where I found the book after accidentally marooning it in the door panel (appropriate, misplacing this book, no?) and had to finish it ASAP. It’s a testament to Weir’s skill at crafting a tale that I couldn’t wait to finish it despite knowing all the story beats from having watched the movie first. I even got anxious that the probe I knew would fail from having literally watched it explode on screen MIGHT NOT MAKE IT! Anyway, having seen the film first didn’t hamper my enjoyment […]

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11/11/2017 's CBR9 Review No:44 |

Fascinating insight into our inevitable (giant) step next door

How We'll Live On Mars by Stephen L. Petranek

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Over the Christmas break, I watched the National Geographic Channel’s excellent drama-cum-documentary series Mars. A couple of episodes in, as one of the documentary sequences interviewed Stephen L. Petranek, I had a moment of realisation: hang on, I have this book and it’s one I haven’t read yet! To the Bookcave, Batman! Petranek’s How We’ll Live On Mars, like all the TED Books series, is short and sharp. It’s fewer than 100 pages, designed to be read in a single sitting (or maybe two, if you get interrupted). All the authors have done TED Talks, and like those talks, these […]

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2/13/2017 's CBR9 Review No:5 |

Everything old is new again, and I want to inhale it all

Red Rising (The Red Rising Trilogy, Book 1) by Pierce Brown

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This is the first time since The Passage that my brain has DEMANDED MORE when I’ve gotten to the end of a Book 1. I want, I want, I want. I freaking fracking loved Red Rising, and it was a huge surprise to me, because as per uzh, I had totally forgotten what the book was about by the time it was checked out to me, making it a totally shocking, harsh deep dive into an incredibly complete and consuming future dystopia. There’s a lot in Red Rising that’s familiar, but somehow none of it feels redundant or derivative. It’s […]

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7/5/2016 's CBR8 Review No:27 |

No, not that Martian. The other one.

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

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If you’ve somehow made it this far in life without at least hearing of this book, you are both a marvel and curiosity. To give you a basic run down of the plot: the world is invaded by Martians around the turn of the previous century, and humanity is woefully ill-equipped to fend off the invaders. In other words, have you ever seen a movie or read a book or heard someone tell a story in which aliens invade earth? It no doubt owes at least part of its existence to this book. Just as H.G. Wells practically invented the […]

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1/19/2016 's CBR8 Review No:6 |

Macgyver on Mars!

The Martian by Andy Weir

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Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now h’es sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate the planet while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded on Mars’ surface, completely alone, with no way to signal Earth that he’s alive. And even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone years before a rescue could arrive. Doesn’t that sound fascinating? I’m not a huge science-fiction reader, but that premise sucked me in like […]

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4/16/2015 's CBR7 Review No:17 |


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