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 Haymitch behind the Capitol’s narrative

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

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Well fuck. That was so much more devastating than I expected. It’s been forever since I read the original trilogy but I rewatched the movies recently – which means I likely missed some details that didn’t quite make it into the movies (especially around Maysilee’s family and Merrilee). At least, I could truly appreciate appearances of the younger versions of some of the characters from Catching Fire who appeared as mentors (and the amount of tragic backstory we learned about some of them was wrecking). […]

Welcome to the Machine

The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds by Joe Posnanski

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I like reading Joe Posnanski’s writing about baseball because he understands that baseball, fundamentally, is about stories. And he seems to know every baseball story there is. And every player has a story, from the Hall of Famers to the guys who only got a cup of coffee. The Machine, an account of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, aka “The Big Red Machine”, is full of entertaining stories, both about the players on the Reds, their manager, players on other teams, and even stories that just […]

Turns out that preserved lemons are pretty darn tasty

Big Vegan Flavor by Nisha Vora

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I may have been doing a little retail therapy at Target when I saw a cookbook I hadn’t seen before: Big Vegan Flavor. It had a discount sticker on it too, although it was probably one of those that’s designed to distract from the unreasonable original sticker price. Book cam home with me anyways. I have never been that much into the food blogging or You-tubing worlds, and this apparently descends from that realm. The only thing I really hold against Big Vegan Flavor is […]

“It’s a good thing you’re a Paladin because you would have never made it as a poet.”

Paladin's Hope (The Saint of Steel #3) by T. Kingfisher (author), Joel Richards (Narrator)

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The pinning that is a feature of this series is growing on me.  Don’t get me wrong, I would rather have rivals to lovers than a whole lot of pinning but … yeah, it is growing on me.  So yes, third book into the series, some characters from the previous book make appearances (look, I am a sucker for that, I love getting to check in with Stephen and super breifly Istvhan and Clara) as we follow another one ofthe Saint of Steel’s Paladin’s. I […]

“The middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.”

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

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This book caught me unaware. I didn’t know anything about it, and from a quick glance at the cover I thought it was going to be something light/happy (I dunno, the flowers?) but boy howdy I was wrong. The hints were there all along, the font is harsh, the literal string, but I went in knowing nothing. It was a selection of my library book club, and it was definitely an emotional roller coaster. The premise is this, and I’m not giving away much because […]

Losing Oneself in Art

Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama by Yayoi Kusama

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Yayoi Kusama is one of the most prolific and successful artists of our time. This Japanese born creative genius was a major force on the New York art scene in the sixties, producing interactive installations, performance pieces, and a variety of other artistic offerings. Yet most people are probably more familiar with her contemporaries, like Andy Warhol. In this autobiography published in 2002 (English translation in 2012), Kusama provides some information about her childhood and upbringing, but this is mostly the story of her art […]



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