Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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About Dusty Highway

CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant

To paraphrase Wynonna, books are my strongest weakness. I've been away for a few years. It's time to get back to it. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Dusty Highway's Quick Questions interview - as dAvid.)

Dusty Highway's Reviews:

Maybe you’re a misfit, too. Doesn’t mean you’re not deserving. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be here.

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

January 8, 2019 by Dusty Highway 6 Comments

My first CBR last year was eye-opening, to say the least. I paid more attention to my reading than I have since college, and I also paid fresh attention to my book choices after being confronted by the ugly truth of my blindspot for women authors. And though not every book was a winner, I did fall in love with a number of books and authors new to me, including Becky Chambers and her delightful The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, one of […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Science Fiction Tagged With: a closed and common orbit, Becky Chambers, cbr11, Character-focused, cozy, hard sci-fi, lgbt lit

Dusty Highway's CBR11 Review No:1 · Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction · Tags: a closed and common orbit, Becky Chambers, cbr11, Character-focused, cozy, hard sci-fi, lgbt lit ·
Rating:
· 6 Comments

“Conflicted” would have been a more accurate title

December 23, 2018 by Dusty Highway 2 Comments

Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, is difficult to digest. She’s the youngest of seven children in a fundamentalist Mormon family in rural Idaho. Her father rules with the proverbial iron fist. He’s a survivalist, a millennialist, a conspiracy-theorist. He keeps his children out of school, refuses them medical care, continually places them in physical danger. Her mother resists in small ways but ultimately caves whenever the father demands her submission. One of her brothers educates himself well enough to get into BYU and encourages Tara to […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir Tagged With: #CBR10, #memoir, child abuse, Educated, Education, fundamentalist, misogyny, Mormonism, Religion, Tara Westover

Dusty Highway's CBR10 Review No:68 · Genres: Biography/Memoir · Tags: #CBR10, #memoir, child abuse, Educated, Education, fundamentalist, misogyny, Mormonism, Religion, Tara Westover ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

Nothing more than a conjuror of cheap tricks

December 16, 2018 by Dusty Highway Leave a Comment

How would you live your life if you knew when you were going to die? That’s the high-concept idea behind Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists, which opens in 1969 Brooklyn with the four Gold children, aged 7 to 13, visiting a fortune teller who gives each the exact date of his or her death. Three of the four are upset by their predictions, and each reacts differently in the following years.  Simon leaves home at 16 and follows his sister to San Francisco where he can […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: #CBR10, AIDS crisis, Chloe Benjamin, overrated, the Immortalists, United States - 20th Century

Dusty Highway's CBR10 Review No:67 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: #CBR10, AIDS crisis, Chloe Benjamin, overrated, the Immortalists, United States - 20th Century ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

More secrets from the Creekwood gang

December 10, 2018 by Dusty Highway Leave a Comment

I’m still three reviews behind, so I’ll get right to it with this one. Having read and loved Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda earlier this year, I figured I may as well read the follow-up, Leah on the Offbeat, especially since it was one of the few finalists for the 2018 Goodreads Awards that I already owned.  The whole gang from Simon is back for senior year, and Simon’s long-time best friend Leah gets to tell her own story. The title is […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: #CBR10, becky albertalli, Leah on the Offbeat, lgbt, Young Adult

Dusty Highway's CBR10 Review No:66 · Genres: Fiction, Young Adult · Tags: #CBR10, becky albertalli, Leah on the Offbeat, lgbt, Young Adult ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

I am now a Tade Thompson fanboy

December 8, 2018 by Dusty Highway Leave a Comment

The Kinokuniya bookstore above Shinjuku Station in Tokyo has become one of my favorite stores for its excellent selection of English-language books. They have a really good sci-fi/fantasy section, and on a recent visit, they had a whole rack dedicated to recent award winners where I noticed the winner of a new award for African speculative fiction — the Nommo Award — and was intrigued enough to buy a copy.  And let me just say that if there’s a better science fiction book this year […]

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Tagged With: #CBR10, African fiction, fantasy, Nigeria, Nommo Award, Rosewater, science fiction, Tade Thompson

Dusty Highway's CBR10 Review No:65 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction · Tags: #CBR10, African fiction, fantasy, Nigeria, Nommo Award, Rosewater, science fiction, Tade Thompson ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

My favorite book of 2018

December 4, 2018 by Dusty Highway 2 Comments

It’s official: I have the yips. I finished reading this book three weeks ago, but every time I’ve tried to write a review, I freeze, not because I have nothing to say but because I can’t seem to calm my mind enough to write the review this book deserves.  For you see: Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is my favorite book of the year. Chee shares essays about his life and writing career, keeping the subjects separate at first, then integrating them […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #CBR10, #memoir, #writing, Alexander Chee, essays, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, lgbt, Non-Fiction, Race, sexual abuse, The Best

Dusty Highway's CBR10 Review No:64 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: #CBR10, #memoir, #writing, Alexander Chee, essays, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, lgbt, Non-Fiction, Race, sexual abuse, The Best ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments
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