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.

 

A Smudge on the Page of History

Better The Blood by Michael Bennett

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Sometimes you start reading a book and you know you’re in good hands.  That’s how I felt as I dove into Michael Bennett’s novel, Better the Blood.  Set in present-day Auckland, the story explores how past colonial trauma echoes on into future generations (a topic that seems timely in so many ways right now). Detective Senior Hana Westerman is on her way into a courtroom when someone sends an anonymous video to her phone.  It isn’t until later in the day (after the judge hands […]

The Book that Helped Influence a Movement

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

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Best for: Anyone interested in a straightforward exploration of a woman’s life under patriarchy. In this case, the patriarchy women experience in Korea. In a nutshell: Kim Jiyoung’s story, from birth through motherhood, and all the times her being a girl / woman has been held against her. Worth quoting: “It felt more like harassment or violence than pranks, and there was nothing she could do about it.” “It wasn’t that she didn’t have time – she didn’t have room in her head for other […]

They’re All My Friends, And They Died…

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

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I haven’t ugly cried over a book in a hot minute, but man, I sure ugly cried over this one.  This is one of those books that everyone recommends to you and for whatever reason you dig your feet in that it’s probably not going to be for you but you politely say, “Thanks for the recommendation” and then go on about reading anything but that book.  Does anyone else do that? And then invariably, when you sit down to read the book that your […]

Memorable but not fun for me

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

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I’d seen Yellowface (2023) by R.F. Kuang on various lists at the end of the year, which encouraged me to pick it up. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was still surprised. I’ve read a number of books where plots are stolen or authors pretend to be something they’re not, and this one felt nothing like them. In fact, it felt more like a horror story than a literary story. June Hayward is an aspiring author. She has published one book that did not […]

“Women were built to endure the rules men make.”

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

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I would think it a real challenge to make a story about women suffering under abusive husbands and the difficulties of living in the caste system in India incredibly funny, but this book managed to do that. The humor is dark, but the characters (mostly women) are authentic, interesting and very relatable as they try to navigate the world of men while finding ways to advocate for themselves in a world that doesn’t want them to do much at all. Geeta’s awful husband disappeared 5 […]

Two five stars in a row from me for this series. I love it so much!

The Marquis Who Mustn't (Wedgeford Trials, #2) by Courtney Milan

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As often happens with books that I five-star love and gobble up in a mindless pleasure fest of reading indulgently, I am finding it hard to have anything to say beyond BOOK GOOD READ NOW. But let’s try anyway. This is the second book in Courtney Milan’s Wedgeford Trials series, about a small town in Victorian England that is full of mostly Chinese emigrants (as always, the author’s notes are a must-read for historical context) but other members of the Asian diaspora as well. The […]



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