Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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YA + Alternative History + Zombies!!

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

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Justina Ireland’s 2018 YA novel Dread Nation was one of New York Public Library’s Winter 2018 Picks for Young Adults. When I read the brief description about alternative history and zombies and then saw the totally badass cover over on Amazon, I had to read it. Although it clocks in at over 400 pages, I zipped through it in no time, and all I can say is that there had better be a sequel soon! Set in the 1870s, Ireland shows her readers an America that is horrifying and familiar. She has also created some cool and courageous characters, most […]

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1/11/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:2 |

“It’s a cruel, cruel world. And the people are the worst part.”

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

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In Justina Ireland’s America, nobody won the Civil War. The war simply never ended, because of the shamblers. The shamblers are the dead that rose up from the battlefields of Gettysburg and began to walk, hungry for blood and flesh. The country needed to band together to fight this new threat, and the war simply petered out. Most of the cities in the South are simply gone. Burned. Destroyed. Overrun by shamblers. The cities in the North are doing slightly better, but its hard to get a straight answer out of the politicians about what the future may look like. […]

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.

Share the post "“It’s a cruel, cruel world. And the people are the worst part.”"

1/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:3 |

There is literally no place in American history that’ll be awesome for me.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

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REVIEW OF BOTH KINDRED (Octavia E. Butler) & DREAD NATION (Justina Ireland) It was just by chance that I happened to read Dread Nation and Kindred at the same time, but it was hard not to draw parallels between the two books.  Issues of gender, power, and the complexities of race as well as strong female narrators bind the two across the vast distance of their publication dates. Both books have interesting layers, and comparing and contrasting them would make a great literary analysis essay, but as Trevor Noah would say, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.” Instead, here are some […]

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7/13/2018 's CBR10 Review No:23 |

A gift that keeps on giving

The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

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I’m finally getting around to reading one of the books I got in last year’s book exchange!  (And a book I am currently lending to a coworker!)  I like it, but it’s not quite what I was expecting. It kind of reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Ugly Little Boy.” In that story, scientists have pulled a Neanderthal child from the past to study it, almost like they are studying the children in The Girl With All the Gifts.     Basically, the world has gone to shit.  Not surprisingly. Humanity has been infected with a fungus that […]

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7/5/2018 's CBR10 Review No:7 |

A Tamer Lucifer than Tom Ellis

Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey

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Given the intricacy and violence of the other two books in the series I’ve read, I was a little surprised at how tame Lucifer actually was in Kill the Dead. I was all ready for some kind of intricate, elaborate super-scheme when the devil hires Stark at the end of Sandman Slim for bodyguard duty. The only thing for most of the novel that Lucifer seemed to be up to was actually supervising his biopic and using that as an excuse to stay away from the potential political trouble in Hell. In terms of story, really all he seemed to […]

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6/27/2018 's CBR10 Review No:39 |

Don’t Expect Logical Actions from Racists

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

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Thank you so much to caitycat! I doubt I would have stumbled across this novel without her review, and I thoroughly enjoyed it despite some minor complaints about potential red herrings or loose threads. The novel is set near Baltimore in 1880.  The North never won the Civil War because of the zombie outbreak that followed the Battle of Gettysburg, leading to a quick reconciliation between the two sides to face the common threat to the survival of humanity.  Slaves were declared free, but, for many, there is not much difference between their former lives and current – they don’t […]

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6/18/2018 's CBR10 Review No:112 |

I really wanted to like this, but…

Dust by Joan Frances Turner

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So this book was suggested to me by someone (I think here in one of my other zombie book reviews, or maybe over on Pajiba).  I bought the audiobook from Amazon, and started listening to it a few weeks ago when my carpool partner was away for two weeks.  Like I said in my title – I really wanted to like it.  Unfortunately, it never really grabbed me.  The idea was solid, and I don’t know if it was just the writing style, or the plot that I nearly hated.  It was read by Eva Amurri, and I love her […]

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6/1/2018 's CBR10 Review No:28 |

“There’s nothing like a few severed heads to take your mind off politics…”

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

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“It’s a cruel, cruel world. And the people are the worst part…” Dread Nation invites its readers to imagine an alternate history of the United States. During the terrible years of the Civil War the dead began to rise. They feasted upon the living changing them into zombies, or shamblers, as they prefer here. The war was set aside to focus on the more pressing threat. The slaves were set free, but still weren’t given much freedom. Young black men and women were sent to special schools to be trained to fight the undead, as they were thought to have […]

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5/17/2018 's CBR10 Review No:4 |


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