Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About GentleRain

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Your jack of all trades eccentric. Knows a little about a lot and a lot about a little. Tends to mainly read non-fiction (history, true crime, old gossip, etc), SF/F, horror, graphic novels, "genre" books. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: GentleRain's Quick Questions interview.)

GentleRain's Reviews:

“One of the most important things you can do is learn to do is prioritize:” Good Advice for Any Age

Camp by Kayla Miller

Crunch by Kayla Miller

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CBR14Bingo: Verse (both books are set in the same universe/setting) Camp and Click are standalone books in the same series. It does help to know the character relationships, but it doesn’t really take away your ability to understand the narrative. In Camp, Olive and Willow go to summer camp for the first time. They’re best friends but Olive is more outgoing and Willow is shy and just wants to hang out with Olive. The tension between Olive wanting to try new things and meet new […]

“Don’t be an enemy to you. Love you. Be your friend.”

Enemies by Svetlana Chmakova

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CBR14Bingo: Font (I always really like Chmakova’s handwritten font.) Enemies is the fourth in Svetlana Chmakova’s Berrybrook Middle School series, which I love. I’ve been waiting a few years for the most recent installment and this lived up to my hopes. Felicity lives in the shadow of her little sister Letty, who is always winning science fairs and getting recognition for her academic achievement. In the beginning of the book, Letty teases Felicity that she never finishes anything, and so Felicity sets out to win […]

Strong Writing and an Interesting World Meet the Bad Gender Politics of 60s/70s SF/F Yet Again

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

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I read this as part of my planned effort over the next year to thin out my library by reading some of the books I’ve been schlepping from apartment to apartment with the idea that I’ll read them someday. Someday is now! This plan worked here because this book is going straight in the recycling after this review, freeing up shelf space to buy more books. Nightwings is a combination of three novellas, one of which won the Hugo in 1969. I didn’t notice that […]

A Visit With An Old Friend You’ve Outgrown a Little

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

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CBR14Bingo: Bodies (dead bodies, aliens inhabiting human bodies, people going from cyberspace into a body for the first time, etc.) I was obsessed with Neil Gaiman’s work from high school through college and then burned out and haven’t read anything by him in probably 10 years, so when I saw this in the bookstore I initially didn’t think I was going to get it. But when I picked it up and started reading the first story, I remembered that I liked that one, and it […]

Coming of Age When Your Parents Are in the CIA

Passport by Sophia Glock

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CBR14Bingo: Gaslight (I wouldn’t say her parents purposefully gaslight her, but they keep a lot of information from her and live in a cloud of secrecy that she never fully gets answers about) This is a well done book in a technical sense — the art is accomplished and clear, I like the use of a muted and restrained color palette, the story has a clear arc — but there’s something hollow about it that didn’t click for me. I think it might be because […]

“look, I know you don’t believe me when I say I’m imprisoned in our slack workplace”

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

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CBR14Bingo: Rec’d (I recommend this one! Fast and excellent skewering of Slack/work culture in 2022) This is one of those books that hit me at the exact right time. As someone who is constantly on Slack for work, I am still thinking about perfectly it skewered the grim experience of corporate tech chat messaging. Throughout the day today I was struck by how well he satirized various interactions. Several People are Typing gets everything about the tone and the purgatorial aspect of this platform while […]



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