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.

 

Like Lord of the Flies at Disneyland

FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven

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If you strand a bunch of (mostly) 20 something year old adults who work in a theme park for 35 days during a natural disaster, what do you think would happen? If you’re hoping for Temptation Island level hijinks, you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if you’re leaning toward murder and heads on a stick level violence, then this is the book for you! Think Lord of the Flies, but with adults and multiple tribes. This book works for a lot of reasons. First, you have […]

Go read Melissa while your library still carries it

Melissa by Alex Gino

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On November 7, 2024, I binge-ordered a bunch of books from banned lists – not sure why I remember the date of that order so clearly….  Anyway, my hope was to collect books that I wanted to be sure my daughter has access to, and since I haven’t read many of them myself, I’m planning to alternate them between my usual mysteries, fantasy, and sci-fi.  Melissa is the first book from our new banned book collection that I’ve read. Melissa is geared toward middle-grade kids […]

Eighteen minutes. That’s how long you’ve got to hold ’em.

Tanqueray by Stephanie Johnson and Brandon Stanton

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Stephanie Johnson became famous later in life via the popular blog, “Humans of New York.” I learned of her a couple of months ago when a vignette of one of her stories showed up in my Instagram feed. It was the story of how she became a dominatrix in 1980’s New York. When I searched for more stories, I learned that she had a memoir titled Tanqueray, which was her burlesque stage name. Stephanie has a distinct voice, and Stanton did a lovely job of […]

“If no one is going to remind you that you are worth more than all of these awful men combined, I will.”

Loud: Accepting Nothing Less than the Life You Deserve by Drew Afualo

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If you don’t follow Drew Afualo on TikTok, your FYP is doing you dirty, because Drew is a delight. I mean, for me, anyways.  Not so much for the ignorant, the misogynistic, the bullies, the shit talkers. For them? Drew is – or she should be – the absolute last person they hope to see. And she revels in it, as is obvious in her book Loud: Accepting Nothing Less than the Life You Deserve. The book is rooted in her work on her platform […]

A Solid Conclusion to the Hillbilly Fantasy Trilogy

The Hippogriff Riders of Oklahoma by Ferrett Steinmetz

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Daisy and Wild-Eye (and adorable baby dragon Ace) are at it again. This time, the two lifelong friends and minor criminals are running cigarettes from Texas back home to Oklahoma at the bequest of Daisy’s werewolf boss Dusty. After a brief interaction with a highway trooper who realizes that its best to stay out of Dusty’s business, Daisy starts mentally hearing cries of distress high in the sky. What swoops down to attack them is a monstrosity of a creature – a hippogriff formed out […]

“The world is wide and full of grace, I promise you.”

A Gentleman's Gentleman by TJ Alexander

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TJ Alexander’s A Gentleman’s Gentleman is a passion project done very well. I loved it so much. Lord Christopher Eden is a “man of unusual make” who has built a quiet life for himself in the country that he loves. Unfortunately, his father’s will requires that he marry before his birthday in order to fully inherit the family estate. This means leaving going to London for the Season and trying to appear acceptable to society. This means he needs a valet, so he asks that […]



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