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 power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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There is no American truth teller like James Baldwin. I always come away from his writing–whether fiction or nonfiction–changed. I don’t know how he could hold so much clear-eyed rage and pain alongside so much love and dignity. He never spared anyone from the truth, even himself. His book The Fire Next Time is a short book with only two essays, but he packs so much into them. The first essay is a letter to his nephew, called “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew […]

“Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass.”

James by Percival Everett

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I heard from multiple people that James was THE BOOK to read last year, and it was on a lot of best of lists, so I was exicted to give it a read. It fully hooked me from the first sentence “Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass.” I didn’t have a lot of expectations about this book, but having me chuckle from the start was a surprise. This is a retelling of the classic tale Huck Finn but from the […]

Did you know you have a cock in your sweater?

Ruffled Feathers: an Omegaverse Romcom by Grace McGinty

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Grace McGinty’s Ruffled Feathers: An Omegaverse Romcom makes for such a delightful palate cleanser after some of the truly dark romance that I’ve been reading lately. Romcom is the perfect descriptor for this luscious bonbon. There are multiple meet cutes since it’s a why choose romance. There are amusing high jinx involving adorable animals. Which is not to say that it’s completely saccharine. There are some mild taboos – the FMC and one of the MMCs are stepsiblings, but their parents didn’t meet and get […]

You know the cliche about history…

A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan

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Yeah, the one about not knowing it and being doomed to repeat it? Well, here’s exhibit number bajillion, Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them. This likely sounds familiar to you: a man of ill repute, shady origin, and gross appetites seeks to capitalize on the population’s racist and xenophobic impulses by becoming the head of a large organization; along the way he makes a lot of money by extorting […]

A Stolen Life

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard

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This book absolutely broke my heart. And I mean truly broke; I cried in public twice. Once in Pret and again on my train. Jaycee’s story impacted me massively. A Stolen Life is Jaycee Lee Dugard’s memoir of her eighteen years in captivity. She was kidnapped in broad daylight at age eleven, and was kept in her captor’s backyard until she was 29 with two teenage daughters of her own. The book is a difficult read, to say the least. Dugard’s writing is heartbreakingly honest and […]

Read for the translator, stay for the spaceship description

Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang

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I like Ken Liu’s own writing, but I love his translations. So when Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang came out about a year ago, I bought it, read the translator’s notes immediately, read the notes to my politely smiling husband, then shelved the book for a later time. The time has come. My knowledge of China is piecemealy and Jumpnauts assumes that the reader has a better understanding of the country and its history than I do – which makes sense since the book and its […]



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