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.

 

Nobody Should Ever Let Me Live-Text Them About Anything, Ever Again

Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

by 10 Comments

Listen: I loved this book so much that I am completely unable to be a reasonable person about it. I don’t know how to write a proper, coherent review when all I’ve got is excited hand-flapping and maybe also shrieks of excitement. So, instead, please enjoy this series of increasingly unhinged text messages that I sent to my friend Danielle over the course of about 48 hours.    Okay, so, I’m reading this on my lunch break (started it when you first lent it to […]

A little SNL escapist romance

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

by 4 Comments

I’ve read Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, which I enjoyed. So when I began seeing Romantic Comedy (2023) around, I figured I’d like that one as well. Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls [basically, SNL]. She’s been working at the show for nine years and loves the frantic energy of it all. After an early failed marriage and an unrequited crush on another SNL writer, she’s dedicated to staying single. But Sally has noticed how many of the male writers on the show have ended up dating some […]

What Is “The Apocalypse” Anyway But Another Series of Bad Days, Or Same As It Ever Was, Or It’s Irrelevant

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor & Janina Matthewson

by 1 Comment

I can’t really explain it, but You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is a near five star book. I rated it 4.5 stars on Storygraph and I’m not quite sure why I didn’t rate it a 5. I want to… there’s something… but I want to. But I won’t. Because there’s something on the tip of my tongue or on the cusp of catchable thoughts that maybe I can’t articulate. Or maybe I’m just that much of a hard ass. There are a few things […]

Epic fantasy inspired by the Pre-Columbian Americas

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

by 2 Comments

CBR15 Bingo: On the Road – For two main characters about 80% of the book is them travelling. Bingo! The lands surrounding the Crescent Sea are ruled from the distant, northern city of Tova and the religious order of the Watchers.  The power of the Watchers has been waning and now that a commoner, Naranpa, has the highest role of Sun Priest there is dissent in the order and city.  Tova itself is broken into four districts each ruled by a different clan: Tsay (Golden […]

Closer Than We Thought

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

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Rebecca Wragg Sykes, an archaeologist and science writer, attempts to make Neanderthal life comprehensible by explaining with great joy and verve the current state of research and the conclusions that can be drawn from it. She makes the case that Neanderthals did not match the cliché of dumb brutes, but instead underwent major developments and were capable of immense adaptation during their existence of roughly 300,000 years. However, there is a major problem with the book almost from the start, and that is basically the […]

bit too much plot for me, but I enjoyed a number of the threads and will read the next

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by K.J. Charles

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The Will Darling books mean that I will read almost anything by KJ Charles for a while. This, however, which was hotly awaited and eagerly devoured didn’t quite do it for me, although I think it would do it for other people! If I had to put a pithy point to it, it reminded me a bit of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb in that there were way too many plots and characters and side quests and backstories all over the place, to the point where […]



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