Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About GentleRain

CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Levels

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:

“For I fear that the day when aliens reveal themselves to us fully will also become the first day of the end of life on Earth as we know it!”

UFO Mushroom Invasion by Shirakawa Marina

by Leave a Comment

This is the second book in Ryan Holmberg’s imprint of classic SF/horror manga from the 1970s/80s. I will say I enjoyed Her Frankenstein better but I thought UFO Mushroom Invasion was also interesting and had some striking moments that made me glad I read this. I do understand that smaller print books tend to be more expensive because they have smaller print runs and tighter economics to work out, but $19.95 is a tough price point for me here considering that most manga is ranging […]

“I think about the future a lot.”

Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich

by Leave a Comment

A while ago, I deaccessioned a lot of my comics/graphic novels, and now years later am reaccessioning the ones that I realized I really do want. Kimmie66 is one of those. I am a lifelong fan of Aaron Alexovich’s other series, Serenity Rose, and this is in somewhat of the same vein tonally. Kimmie66 is set in a near future where there are immersive VR worlds (“lairs”) that people spend large amounts of their lives in. Telly is 14 and her lair is Elysium, a […]

BL and GL Mixed Bag Reviews

My Dearest Patrolman Vol. 1 by Niyama

My Dearest Patrolman Vol. 2 by Niyama

Boys Gilding the Lily Shall Die!? by Yomogimochi

No Spicy Romance Allowed! by Ruko Amato (Story) and Kuroe Oki (Art)

by Leave a Comment

I’m going to do some last minute reviews of books I’ve read in the last week before the end of the year, which has mainly been comics. I have been reading a bunch of nonfiction and other genres but I didn’t bring those home for Christmas to review them so we’ll go with what we have to wrap up this year of reviews. My Dearest Patrolman (Volumes 1 & 2) is a sweet BL series that follows Shin, a policeman who has been pining for […]

“You never leave jail, and jail never leaves you.”

I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup by David Chura

by Leave a Comment

I honestly don’t remember where I got this, but I think it was at a used bookstore this summer. I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine is a collection of stories of David Chura’s time teaching teenagers who were seen as adult criminals legally and were being put into the adult system. He covers a variety of scenarios and tells some very heartbreaking stories that he saw during his tenure as a teacher. His main thesis is that the system is destructive […]

“But all’s well that ends well, and if your adventure is successful, all those little problems you had will soon become very funny to you indeed.”

Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Tiny Forest Adventure by Emma Steinkellner

by 2 Comments

This is the charming sequel to the first Nell of Gumbling book. The series takes place in a fairy tale based town, but it’s just normal life for everyone and the focus is more on the power of community and learning positive lessons versus the magical elements. I like this sort of everyday life within a fantasy world, so the setting really works for me, and Emma Steinkellner’s art is perfect. In this volume, Nell is going to do a summer camping course (the Wilderness […]

Three Photobook Reviews

Say, Is This the U.S.A. by Erskine Caldwell & Margaret Bourke-White

The Quake of '89 by News Staff of the San Francisco Chronicle

Earth Angels: Migrant Children in America by Nancy Buirski

by Leave a Comment

These three books sum up the span of photojournalism pretty well, both in time and stylistically. I am not so much an art photography person, nor someone who likes books of just photographs without captions, even if I am a big fan of the photographer. For me, the captions offer the context that make the image more meaningful to me. Say, is this the U.S.A. is a collaborative tour through the USA in 1941, with Margaret Bourke-White providing some great photographs and Erskine Caldwell writing […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo