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.

 

So Many People Failed Her

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

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Best for: People interested in how youth stardom, misogyny, and failures of the justice system can impact someone. In a nutshell: Singer Spears shares her story, from being a teen star and one of the most famous people in the English-speaking world, through the conservatorship that kept her under lock and key for over a dozen years. Worth quoting: “I accomplished a lot during that time when I was supposedly incapable of taking care of myself.” Why I chose it: As someone who consumed a […]

Adventures in Bedtime Reading

How To Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

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My quest for a book that appeals to both my six year old son and me continues, with the latest attempt being the first in the How To Train Your Dragon series. You may think you know this story if you’ve seen the Dreamworks movie and sequels, but I can assure you: you don’t! The novel strikes an entirely different tone and the story told within the  differs in many respects. Yes, our narrator and central character is Hiccup, future heir to the viking clan […]

…a great experience in a park typically doesn’t happen in a few minutes.

Subpar Parks: America's Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors by Amber Share

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CBR15 BINGO (Guide square: all about the NPS and the jags that give them bad reviews on Yelp.) BINGO! Hold Steady to Nostalgia BINGO! In the Wild to Edibles I think I first found @subparparks on Instagram during the pandemic. I can’t remember the first post that I saw, but I laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of some people. Amber Share’s account blends her love of lettering and illustration with her love of the national parks in the U.S. After reading a one-star Yelp […]

From Preservatives to Currency to Warfare: A Salty Journey

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

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Ketchup was once a fish sauce that was made with anchovies. It was an American who first came up with tomato ketchup. This is one of many interesting bits of trivia that stood out in Salt: A World History. Others include: the Chinese were using natural gas to cook (to heat brine to obtain salt) almost 2,000 years ago. the term “red herring” came from the early New England settlers leaving red herring along their trail when they hunted in order to confuse wolves. the […]

Truth Killzzz

What Meets the Eye: A Mystery by Alex Kenna

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My goodness, what a read! If you like modern mysteries, seedy underbellies, art weirdies, or flawed people trying to do the right thing in an ambiguous world, this is yer book! Or audiobook! Or papyrus – however you enjoy books, try this one. Alex Kenna went to art school and law school and was a prosecutor; therefore, she is the perfect person to write a mystery set in the L.A. art world about an ex-cop trying to navigate the legal system. Kate Myles was a […]

“It’s hard to stop being afraid when the whole world is literally full of monsters.”

City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer

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Look, when the book’s blurb starts out with “ever since her sister became a man-eating spider”, how in the world could I not pick up this book? And while I was initially put off by the cover (seriously, it doesn’t not match the book at all), I’m so glad I picked this up. It’s a quirky story but one I very much enjoyed. For over a hundred years, people have been afraid of Nightmares. If you dream, you have a chance of turning into a […]



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