Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It appears that 19th century soap opera adventure stories are my thing!

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

by 13 Comments

Reviewer Note: In 2024, I started to read the free version of The Count of Monte Cristo that is available from Project Gutenberg (my go-to resource for novels in the public domain). After reading 200 pages, I couldn’t understand why I was so bored. This novel has more action than a Die Hard movie, yet I was struggling to stay interested. I decided to do some research into what’s considered the best translation of this novel, and I found recommendations for the edition translated by Robin […]

A nice anthology of mildly gruesome stories

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

by Leave a Comment

This is an anthology of interconnected short stories that takes place in Tokyo in an indeterminate time, but presumably sometime in the 1990s. Each of the stories (of which there are eleven) is from the perspective of a different character, and shares some commonality to the story that immediately precedes it. In “Afternoon at the Bakery”, for instance, the narrator enters a bakery for some strawberry shortcake. It’s her son’s birthday who (it is revealed) is now dead. That is what his last birthday cake […]

Rage Against the Machine

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

by Leave a Comment

This review contains some mild spoilers which I think are given away in the book jacket. Iron Widow is a YA story set in a future city of Chinese inspired Huaxia where men and women pilot mecha type suits to protect the population from aliens around the Great Wall. The suits are called Chrysalises, and the pilot, a man, teams up with a woman in the back in a merging of energy and minds that usually result in the woman’s death. This is how the […]

Push their faces together and make them kiss already

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

by Leave a Comment

When her gaze finally reached his face, she had to swallow a sigh and bury it where nobody would ever find it. But how could she help it? His jaw was sharp and angled enough that it could be a weapon itself, strong enough to make her insides quiver. Don’t let him quiver your insides, Evie. ― Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Assistant to the Villain When she cannot find a job, Evie stumbles into the new role of the assistant to The Villain. Not “a” villain […]

Freaky, Funny, and Frustrating (In a Good Way)

Parasol Against the Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

by 2 Comments

Every time I think that I may have Helen Oyeyemi figured out she hits me with another blast of wild magic. She often deals in the inner workings of fairy tales, but this time she has taken on a fairy tale of a city: Prague. We’ve all heard of the (super played out trope) of “New York City IS a character!”, but Prague is in charge here. Prague may be driving the theoretical bus, but Thea, Hero, and a cast of bizarre folks including a […]

Romance in SWEDISH! I’m expanding my horizons

En enda natt (All In) by Simona Ahrnstedt

by Leave a Comment

Nowhere Book Bingo: First in a finished series CBR16 Sweet Books: New (new author AND first time reading romance in Swedish) Financial bad boy and seemingly ruthless venture capitalist David Hammar is a self-made man and has acquired his wealth and power for one purpose, which he is close to achieving. He is determined to take over Investum, one of the biggest companies in Sweden, owned and controlled by the powerful De la Grip family. Since the takeover might go smoother if his company has […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo