Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

The Wheel (spinning) of Time

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

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Book four of The Wheel of Time is where I began to have some doubts about finishing this series. I knew going in that I was setting myself up to real fourteen books, which is more than I have done for any other series. Though I found the first book, The Eye of the World, to be derivative (of Lord of the Rings and Arthurian legend in particular) at times I enjoyed the story and characters enough to continue on. The second novel, The Great […]

As Slippery as a Fish

Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan

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“Billy Gould could not escape the growing suspicion that he had become entrapped in a book, a character whose future as much as his past was already written, determined, foretold, as unalterable as it was intolerable. What choice did he have but to destroy that book?”   I’ve saved the most flummoxing book of the year for the last square on the bingo board: a book which involves metafiction and magical realism in convict-era Tasmania. Thanks, Richard Flanagan. Gould’s Book of Fish has a convoluted […]

Should A Classic Be Discounted Because of the Racist Origins of its First Title?

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

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As a teenager, I was a huge Agatha Christie fan. There’s a reason she ranks among the most widely published authors of all time (behind only Shakespeare). The lady can spin a yarn! I’m proud to say I guessed the murderer in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd when I first read it, though I recently reread And Then There Were None and did not guess said murderer. (I haven’t read the book in twenty-plus years, so it feels brand-new). The title has been changed twice […]

The National Pastime in a Past Time

Electric October by Kevin Cook

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If the 1947 World Series had been an uneventful contest, it still would have held two historic distinctions. Most importantly, it was the first World Series featuring black players. Rookie of the Year Jackie Robinson was a big reason the Brooklyn Dodgers won the pennant. (The Dodgers also had a second Black player, Dan Bankhead, but he had been an ineffective relief pitcher late in the season and was only used as a pinch-runner in the World Series.) Secondly, it was the first World Series […]

Powerful YA

Shards of Silence by Brian Lee Young

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Shards of Silence is an excellent book that’s grappling with intergenerational trauma of residential schools, as well as the story of Derrick coping with the pressures of being in a new environment far away from his community and family. There’s the weight of holding traumatic events inside and not speaking of them, as well as choices Derrick makes in order to meet the demands of the college-preparatory school he has the opportunity to attend. I really loved how many topics were woven into this, and […]

A Magic School for Kids

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

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CBR Square- School I read The Incandescent by Emily Tesh because she promoted it on Threads as a book with a magic school where the adults are allowed to be competent. And that doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes, but when the students get themselves into trouble with their magic, they go to an adult who can help them and she does. So this is entirely told from the adult perspective, and one demon. I really liked it a lot. Dr. Walden is the Director of Magic […]



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