tiny_bookbot – Page 2 – Cannonball Read 17

a bold swing but a tough miss

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

February 25, 2024 by tiny_bookbot Leave a Comment

Tootle Tsamaase’s Womb City showed up on several lists for most anticipated 2024 science fiction, and the Afrofuturist dystopia angle of it sounded exciting and different. And clearly also a work with a feminist eye towards women’s autonomy, but providing a different angle than standard issue Western white feminism. I had really high hopes for this one; science fiction is such a potent genre for examining political questions and this looked so fresh and distinctive. The plot summary was also compelling: Nelah lives in a futuristic […]

“our evening stories pushing back the brutal dark”

Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O'Hara by Vona Groarke

January 14, 2024 by tiny_bookbot 1 Comment

I hit burnout sometime around idk when last year, and while I kept on reading, I definitely stopped writing reviews. But now a new semester is staring me in the face, and I have a project I want to procrastinate on, so here’s a review, because I have been reading like a fiend these first two weeks of January, and this might be my favorite thing I’ve read so far this year (might sound like faint praise but I am 13 books deep already). I’ve […]

How we got here (to the summer of strikes)

Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan

August 5, 2023 by tiny_bookbot 2 Comments

CBR Bingo Square: Politics I read Maureen Ryan’s piece in Variety about the hellish writers room of Lost back in the spring, an excerpt lifted from this book as advance publicity, and it did the job of making me very curious about what else she had to say about power politics in Hollywood, particularly as it pertains to people who are not in front of the camera. Ryan does also have plenty to say about how actors are treated (see her discussion of Sleepy Hollow and all that went […]

monsters and miracles in Mexico

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

August 5, 2023 by tiny_bookbot Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo Square: In the Wild I do love a good retelling, and early sci-fi seems especially ripe for the revisionist takes, given how centered they are on white male protagonists, and how absent the perspectives of women and POC are. So the idea of Moreno-Garcia’s follow-up to Mexican Gothic being a retelling of The Island of Doctor Moreau was a very appealing one, especially with moving the action to the Yucatan peninsula and engaging with Mexico’s history of indigenous resistance. Carlota, the eponymous daughter, is one of […]

Murder most delicious

Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala

July 15, 2023 by tiny_bookbot Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo Square: Edibles I love cooking, and I love murder mysteries, so I’m always happy when those two things coincide. Pushing Daisies had all that pie, Recipes for Love and Murder is very fun, etc etc. So I’ve also enjoyed Mia P. Manansala’s series focusing on Lila Macapagal and her Filipino family, particularly as audiobooks. Blackmail and Bibingka is the third in the series, and Lila, the baker-slash-mystery-solver, seems to finally have her life in order: the coffeeshop she opened with her best friend is doing great, […]

“attention forms the ground not just for love, but for ethics”

How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell

July 13, 2023 by tiny_bookbot Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo Square: GUIDE I got this in a CBR gift exchange…a couple years ago, maybe? And it has haunted me ever since as I kept finding reasons to read other things (I’m so busy with grading/researching! I’m in a nonfiction book club and those books keep taking up the nonfiction slot!). But after the spring semester wrapped, I went to South Africa to visit my sister, and I put this in my suitcase, determined to finally read it. And I did. And I liked it. I […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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