Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Nart

CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Levels

Nart is an avid romance reader who dabbles in other stuff when she has the spoons. When she’s not reading she’s a bureaucrat both professionally and as an activist because she’s a masochist. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Nart's Quick Questions interview.)

Nart's Reviews:

Beauty and the Beast is a story of tricking girls into thinking their love can change an abusive partner, but also, hey it probably works sometimes so it’s fine

Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

by Leave a Comment

Dunmore has established herself as an immensely capable writer who is able to weave reality badly needed in the historical romance genre. Her previous books followed suffragettes who were varying degrees of worldly pushing back against powerful men and accept from them only what they want. Even marriage is something that is negotiated with extreme care, because Dunmore goes to great lengths to impress upon the reader the enormous gamble a woman took in marrying a man, who would own her as property. That care […]

“A lifetime of lies that started out small, life a nick in the windshield, then eventually shattered the glass.”

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

by Leave a Comment

A book about lies that come from good intentions, the harm they can cause, and the power to overcome them, all in the context of living in America while Black. Plot: Ruth grew up in a poor factory Indiana town she couldn’t wait to get away from. When she won a full ride scholarship to Yale, she knew that was her way out. Then she got pregnant. The baby was given up for adoption and Ruth moved on. Now a chemical engineer and happily married […]

“You know life goes on after pain, and… well, it goes on before pain too, or around it, or generally proximate.”

The Stormbringer by Isabel Cooper

by 1 Comment

I first heard about this book over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, when they mocked the cover. They are, of course, entirely right. It is not only a generally not great cover, but it also completely fails to clue the reader into the smart, funny, inventive, sweet fantasy epic that they’re about to delve into. It’s described as a paranormal romance but if this is a paranormal romance so is Lord of the Rings and the Witcher. Plot: There is a war between humans and […]

“Love is a gift, and wanting to love things is a bigger gift”

The Devil Comes Courting by Courtney Milan

by Leave a Comment

Courtney Milan is a treasure and frankly, this book should be mandatory reading in school. How are Hemingway and JD Salinger and all those other Sad White Dudes mandatory reading and this goddamn treasure of a human being is not? Plot: Amelia, a Chinese girl of six is adopted by British missionaries in Shanghai after the Taiping Rebellion. She is intensely bright and curious and all the things a good daughter of missionaries is not, but she tries so hard to be good, even if […]

“We are all lichens”

Life Entangled by Merlin Sheldrake

by Leave a Comment

This is the sort of book that can give you back a childlike wonder of the world. Good enough sell yet? I remember being a kid and thinking it was such a waste to live in this time because we already knew everything. There was nothing left to discover. Of course, then I learned abut space, and then about the deep sea, and it turns out there’s actually a rather shocking amount of stuff we don’t know. I would argue there is an overwhelming amount […]

One way to spend truth and reconciliation day

7 Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talago

by Leave a Comment

Here in Canada, we are commemorating the first official federal day of remembrance for truth and reconciliation on September 30. Some are even fortunate enough to have the day off work to, hopefully, dedicate a few hours to better educating ourselves about our shared history. For folks out of school, this likely feels overwhelming. While there is more education for children about residential schools, there is little structured education for those who went through the school system when we were still pretending to be a […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo