Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and write the damned review

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

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I’ve put off this review far too long, and though I could just skip it, I don’t want to punk out when the reviewing gets tough. I really wanted to like Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees, as it came highly recommended and was written by an African lesbian, a voice I haven’t heard before, but this book really didn’t work for me. That said, I didn’t dislike it enough to hate-review it, so I’m stuck in a kind of mushy middle of blah. Ijeoma is a young Igbo girl growing up in a small town in Biafra on the […]

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2/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:9 |

Nobody fights you like your own sister; nobody else knows the most vulnerable parts of you and will aim for them without mercy.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

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Reviews for this one kept popping up following its November 2018 publication. I’m a bit squeamish and while I like mystery books I don’t read horror. Pluiedenovembre assured me that this one wasn’t scary or gory so I requested it from the library. Like ASKReviews mentioned in her review of this book a few days ago, it is also a very quick read. The chapters are short and crisp, with rapid fire information. Our point of view character is Korede, a nurse in one of Lagos hospitals. She is detail oriented, and likes things to be just so. She is […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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2/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:7 |

Expectations Mostly Met

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

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Movies and books share many obvious differences but what’s especially difficult for the reader versus the cinephile is there aren’t nearly as many movies as there are books. You’d have to practically live under a rock not to know about films like Aquaman and Vice premiering close to or on Christmas, and even if you want to find info non-blockbuster popular indy types like The Favourite, the internet makes that relatively easy. Whereas with books, there are thousands (millions?) that get released yearly throughout a wide range of genres and if you’re on the hunt for new titles outside of those written by megastar authors like […]

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12/22/2018 's CBR10 Review No:62 |

I am now a Tade Thompson fanboy

Rosewater by Tade Thompson

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The Kinokuniya bookstore above Shinjuku Station in Tokyo has become one of my favorite stores for its excellent selection of English-language books. They have a really good sci-fi/fantasy section, and on a recent visit, they had a whole rack dedicated to recent award winners where I noticed the winner of a new award for African speculative fiction — the Nommo Award — and was intrigued enough to buy a copy.  And let me just say that if there’s a better science fiction book this year than Tade Thompson’s Rosewater, then I want to read it, because this book was freaking […]

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12/8/2018 's CBR10 Review No:65 |

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters

My Sister, the Serial Killer: A Novel by Oyinkan Braithwaite

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My Sister, the Serial Killer is the debut novel from Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite, and it packs a real punch! In under 300 pages, Braithwaite draws the reader into a fascinating story of Korede, our narrator, who finds herself repeatedly having to clean up her younger sister Ayoola’s messes. And those messes are the murders of her boyfriends, three and counting. The novel is something of a thriller, as we wait to see if Ayoola will kill again and if the sisters will escape the law, but it is also a commentary on modern Nigeria and the position of women […]

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11/30/2018 's CBR10 Review No:49 |

The power of good-bye

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

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CBR10Bingo: Brain Candy (BINGO!) Before this year, I wasn’t much of a YA reader. I saw myself as more of a Serious Reader, too serious for the frivolity of YA lit. And while my favorite books are still likely to be denser and heavier literary fiction and hard sci-fi, I’ve come to enjoy the balance that YA brings to my library with the quicker read and lighter tone even when the subject matter isn’t so light. Thus, the Brain Candy square was always going to be a YA book. It was just a matter of picking one.  Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata […]

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10/28/2018 's CBR10 Review No:58 |

I wanted to like it …

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

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I didn’t read this one immediately after downloading it, so when the novel didn’t initially click for me, I blamed myself for forgetting that the main character was 12.  I had been thinking of it as a YA novel, but with the ages being around 12, it isn’t quite YA, which of course leads to slightly misaligned expectations.  “Oh,” I thought, “when they meant it’s like Harry Potter, they didn’t just mean magic, they meant age-wise, too.” However, when the novel continued to not quite work for me, I remembered that I liked the Percy Jackson novels and the Harry […]

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4/3/2018 's CBR10 Review No:36 |

when perfect isn’t enough

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo

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SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Hello! It’s hard for me to write about this one without giving away the whole plot, so I’m going to be oblique. Yejide and Akin are a young, happily married, childless couple, and their childlessness leads them both to some questionable and desperate decisions. Yejide’s life seems damned near impossible, while somehow simultaneously completely normal. Or maybe “normal,” but either way it seems impossible, but there she is, making it happen, in the way that so many women do. What she doesn’t know is that normal is one thing it is not, given the state of her […]

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1/22/2018 's CBR10 Review No:2 |


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