Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About CoffeeShopReader

CBR 6
CBR 7
CBR 8
CBR 9
CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Levels

CoffeeShopReader's Reviews:

A Most Entertaining Magical Road Trip, But Missing the Runzas

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

by Leave a Comment

The Simon Snow books are fan fiction of fan fiction, from a fan fiction about fan fiction (or something like that), meaning that they are both adherents to and parodies of the Chosen One genre of fantasy story. They do this very well, and are very entertaining reads. In addition to clearly having fun with tropes and stereotypes, Wayward Son in particular adds what could almost be called a brand of emotional realism to the character and story types. In stories like Harry Potter (which […]

Too much the Chosen One

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

by Leave a Comment

I made what I now think was a mistake in reading We Hunt the Flame immediately after reading a pair of light parodies of the chosen one genre. The mistake was that We Hunt the Flame is very much as serious chosen one fantasy story, and coming after entertaining mockeries of the genre, ended up feeling a little too obvious about things that were probably supposed to be reveals. Zaphira is a girl but also the Hunter whom everyone thinks is a man. Her skill […]

The Book with a Long Title but Not Much Depth

The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life by Usata Nonohara, Ox (illustrator), Guru Mizoguchi (manga)

by Leave a Comment

I don’t always agree with the reviewers in Otaku USA magazine in fact I often don’t, at least on some big point or another. This time however, they nailed it. I saw a review for The Alchemist Who Survived Now Dreams of a Quiet City Life, which decided that this was unremarkable, but cute, more about the characters than the story. Then I was off on a business trip and had some time to spare on my way to the hotel and wandered into a […]

Some Salads Show Up, Some Could Just Stay Home

Show Up for Salad by Terry Hope Romero

by 3 Comments

I have attempted a new rule when it comes to cookbooks: I am not allowed to open a new one which I may have recently bought until I finish working my way through, insofar as is possible) the current one. I’m not always good at this personal rule, but recently it seems to have been working. I somehow missed that Salad Samurai had a sequel, Show Up For Salad, so I had to grab it for use as a lunch for the next several months […]

First of 3 potential Halloween reads

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

by Leave a Comment

I had to go back through old reviews to see if I’d done this one before, and it turns out that 1) I seem to have done the rest of the series but not this first novel, and 2) a novel from this series was close to my first ever Cannonballer review (third one I think). Good times. I decided to re-read this for 2 reasons: 1) I wanted to do a Halloween read that was not Cassidy Blake 2 because I’m saving that for […]

Hopefully Third Time’s The Charm ‘Cause Two Not So Much

Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer

by Leave a Comment

Maybe it’s the fact that Joe Biden is now actually running as a candidate for President, but Hope Rides Again wasn’t quite as entertaining as the first Obama-Biden mystery Hope Never Dies. I was so excited when Michelle makes an appearance but there’s so little of her, and she has virtually no personality here. Such a lost opportunity there. Obama gets a little more personality, but Biden stays the same as the first book, and Steve has even less personality. That was kind of sad […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo