Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search this Site

Bear

Bear by Marian Engel

by Leave a Comment

Fishwives. Fishwidows. And we all set out to be mermaids. ― Marian Engel, Bear The world was furred with late spring snow. It was the soft, thick stuff that excites you unless you are driving or half dead, packing snow already falling in caterpillars off the greening branches. ― Marian Engel, Bear This is the story of a woman who sequesters herself in a remote area of Ontario, Canada, to catalog an estate bequeathed to the Canadian government. In her isolation, she finds herself, breaking […]

Black Cover and Maybe Some Black Hearts or not so Black

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

by 3 Comments

Bingo 19: Black Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar has a cover almost entirely in the proper color. Mostly, this is a story about people who want things they think they either cannot or should not have. Luiza is part Jewish (dangerous during the Inquisition) and has some minor household magic; her milagritos are things like she can make the bread unburnt. She wants to be something more than the scullery maid; she wants better, more money, more comfort, just more. There’s also her boss Valentina who […]

A swing and a miss from Scalzi

When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

by 1 Comment

Bingo: Black I’ve been a longtime Scalzi fan since a friend insisted I read Old Man’s War.  However, his last trilogy, The Collapsing Empire, didn’t do it for me.  Then along came The Kaiju Preservation Society, 5 star read, followed by Starter Villain, 5 star read.  Scalzi was on a roll!  After seeing him at an event for Starter Villain, I was so geeked for the final book in this triptych, When the Moon Hits Your Eye.  Scalzi explained this at the event and here is a concise description […]

Enjoyable, but Not a Standout

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

by Leave a Comment

This is an odd one to write about because while I enjoyed the process of reading it and found the story kept me engaged, enough to rate it 4 stars, I don’t think it’s going to be very memorable for me, and it was hard at first for me to even articulate why I liked it so much. So, what I liked: The short chapters keep the story moving, even though we’re jumping back and forward in time as the novel follows Tom, who has […]

Nightmares of the Fourth Reich

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

by Leave a Comment

Without a doubt, the best thing I’ve read so far this year. Quarter of the way through and not much comes close. As I’ve said many times, I don’t like dystopias that lean too hard into the dystopic-aspect. I like them with the axis of earth just tilted slightly; looking at reality through a cracked mirror. In other words, take scary parts of society and bend them a little to suit your story. Laila Lalami more than delivers that here. What’s frightening about The Dream Hotel is […]

Frequent Tension Made It Hard to Put Down

Kindred by Octavia Butler

by 5 Comments

This was such an intense book. I have never been this on edge for this many pages at a time when reading, which speaks to Butler’s ability to build tension and dread in this novel about slavery. We follow the first person perspective of 26-year-old Dana who one day is suddenly yanked from 1976 to the early 1800s, where she helps a drowning boy. Soon after she time travels back to her home and her husband Kevin to find that only seconds had passed. This […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo