Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


A trippy, atmospheric sci-fi haunted house.

Rose/House by Arkady Martine

by Leave a Comment

“I am Rose House, entire, and have never been anything else. I am not lonely. I do not wish to be a companion of elsewheres.” This was so atmospheric and a pleasure to read, even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand half of what was going on. The main conceit here is that this is a sci-fi take on a haunted house, where the haunt is an A.I. that IS the house, not that inhabits the house or was installed there, but is in […]

This never quite came together for me, but it was interesting along the way.

Flux by Jinwoo Chong

by Leave a Comment

This is an interesting book that is ultimately not really for me, though it has some things going on that made me glad I read it. Even though it left me unsatisfied and mostly puzzled as to what the point was, I never wanted to stop reading (listening) to it, and I was fully engaged the whole time, which is not something you can say for a lot of three-star books. I put off writing this review very much on purpose because I was hoping […]

The first book in an intimidatingly long series about nerdy, silly, time-travel historians, with a surprising amount of angst and drama.

Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #1) by Jodi Taylor

by Leave a Comment

“If this was one of those books, there would now be three pages of head-banging sex. The reality was that he pulled me close, whispered, ‘Mfhbnnntx,’ and I pulled his arm over me like a cover and muttered, ‘Trout,’ and that was pretty much it.” This was a lot better than I thought it would be! (I’ve seen quite a few negative or lukewarm reviews.) I had fun with it. This strange little book is one that only could have come from the bonkers ground […]

A surprise favorite of 2023!

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

by Leave a Comment

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. Okay, but wow. So straight up it’s impossible to talk about this book in any depth without giving out information that should be preserved for the reading experience. As spoiler-free as possible is the best way to go into this one. But generally, and this is as far as the synopsis goes, Vesper Wright left her strict religious community six years before the book starts, when she was almost […]

Not for me.

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

by Leave a Comment

This one keeps souring in my mind the longer I’m away from it. The problem here is that I do not find stories about flighty people escaping from their responsibilities and the people counting on them–whether or not it was “their fault”–inherently interesting. In fact, I kind of hate them. Maybe other people get more kicks out of exploring their shitty unconnected left behind relationships with parental figures, but I find the whole thing unpleasant and not rewarding in any way. The one thing I […]

There’s a universe where I can still eat gluten and dairy. I find this comforting.

Self-Portrait With Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka

by 2 Comments

I’m so glad I picked this little book up against my normal inclinations. The cover makes it look like serious lit-fic, but it absolutely isn’t. This is a light sci-fi/speculative book about a woman named Pepper who was adopted as a baby but whose biological mother, Ula Frost, is a famous reclusive portraitist who is said to be able to pull her clients’ doppelgängers out of her paintings from alternate universes. When Ula seemingly disappears, Pepper is contacted by lawyers and made executor of her […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo