Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

How to wrestle some success from a dress, a snake and a song.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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CBR12 BINGO: Green Square A book about the making of a narcissistic, ruthless and calculating leader is either the most perfect book to be reading right now or the worst. I really can’t decide. In Collins’ prequel to her Hunger Games series, the games are pretty primal. The district tributes aren’t all dolled up, given a backstory, housed in elaborate apartments or fed extravagant buffets. They are kept in a cage at the zoo until they are dumped into a war torn arena to duke it out. […]

Snow Dice

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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For my first CBR Bingo read, I choose the ‘UnCannon’ card (a book not written by an old white man) and eagerly started Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games prequel: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The book follows the final teenage years of the future President Snow’s life. Remember him? The evil villain who taunted and terrorised young Katniss Everdeen in the original Hunger Games trilogy? This book attempts to answer the question that nobody asked: what was Coriolanus Snow like as a young man? Well, for […]

“There are worse games you could play.”

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) by Suzanne Collins

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I think I’m going to bullet point this one since I am now emotionally exhausted. The rest of the review will be all spoilers. *This is still not a five star book for me, though I am going to bump it up to 4.5 stars. Mainly, I’m still mad about Finnick dying, although the longer time passes, the more I see why she did it. Also, the ending does still seem a little rushed and confused, but then again, it does sort of reflect Katniss’s […]

“You would think that at this moment I would be in utter despair. Here’s what’s strange. The main thing I feel is a sense of relief. That I can give up this game. That the question of whether I can succeed in this venture has been answered, even if that answer is a resounding no. That if desperate times call for desperate measures, I am free to act as desperately as I wish.”

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) by Suzanne Collins

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Firstly I just want to point out something weird, which is that this is my 75th book of the year, and this book follows the 75th annual Hunger Games, and I did not plan that, it’s just a very strange coincidence. (Not sure how this ended up being my 76th CBR review though??) Secondly, I want to talk some more about Katniss and her psychological state, there will be spoilers in the rest of the review so mosey along now if you somehow haven’t read […]

“Here’s some advice. Stay alive.”

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins

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I think what I want to talk about on this my third reading of The Hunger Games is why I think it was a breakout bestseller, and why all the books that tried to copy it and profit off of YA “dystopia” as a genre in its wake got it wrong. Hint: they went for the surface level and completely ignored what actually makes this book great. Another hint: It’s not actually the fact that it’s a dystopia. Anyone can do that and it doesn’t […]

Return to the Arena

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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Bingo Square: Green Suzanne Collins is back with another book in the Hunger Games world. This time it’s a prequel, following Coriolanus Snow – later President Snow, of course – as he navigates the world of the Capitol. 18 Years old, the once glorious house of Snow is struggling. Their money is gone, and all that’s left is their penthouse apartment and their class status. Snow needs to make it to graduation and go to university in an attempt to keep himself, his grandmother and […]



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