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.

 

Fast, Fluffy, and Fun

Go Hex Yourself by Jessica Clare

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Reggie assumed the ad she answered for a Spellwork assistant had something to do with the Spellwork card game.  She didn’t expect it to be acting as an assistant to a slightly dotty old woman who thinks she’s a witch.  But it pays amazingly well, so Reggie is willing to put up with Dru, even if her obnoxiously cute nephew doesn’t approve of Reggie.  Ben Magnus is a five hundred year old warlock who would really like his aunt not to hire a new familiar […]

A delightful journey into the world of lexicography

Word by Word by Kory Stamper

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Who would have thought a book about someone who edits dictionaries would be so delightfully engaging? Even better? I listened to the audio book, narrated by Stamper, and her personality and wit shone through the airwaves. Despite her self-deprecating descriptions of lexicographers as solitary, introverted shut-ins who would rather sit in a dark room alone than talk to another human, being in the room with her for this book was a great reading experience. Stamper regaled me with her stories of how she tackled the […]

Her only short story

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

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Recitatif is Toni Morrison’s only short story. Published in 1983, the version I read was republished in 2022 and featured an introduction by Zadie Smith (the introduction was longer than the short story). I often regret reading introductions before I read the main story because I usually prefer to have my own thoughts and impressions when reading something new. On the other hand, I probably notice and take more in when I’ve been primed by an introduction. Anyway, Zadie Smith’s introduction was very smart and thoughtful. […]

“I deserve to be seen. To be noticed. To be heard. To be treated like a human.”

Starfish by Lisa Fipps

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This is a very good novel told in free verse poems from the point of view of Ellie, who is about to enter sixth grade and whose best friend is moving away. She is fat and her mother is determined for her to lose weight by any means necessary, and she keeps pushing Ellie to get weight loss surgery. Ellie is also bullied at school for being fat and then the bullying continues at home by her mother and brother. Her sister also joins in […]

The burden and the gift of knowing one’s history

The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes

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The Deep is a novel inspired by a song by the rappers known as clipping  (Diggs, Hutson and Snipes). It is the story of Yetu, a 34-year-old wajinru (mer-person) who serves as her people’s historian, and of the burden that this vocation entails. It is also the story of the enslaved people of the Americas and of the trauma handed down through generations. The sea-dwelling people known as wajinru were born from a traumatic experience: their foremothers were land-dwelling women who had been enslaved and […]

A Woman is a Mule, or “What’s in that trunk, Adelaide?”, or a Novel of Second Chances

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

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I met Victor LaValle at a literary fest a few years ago. While handing him a copy of The Changeling, which was his latest novel at the time and the book I had just finished reading, I said to him, “I feel like I’m the person you’re writing these books for. You’re writing these books for me.” And I meant it then and I mean it now. There’s a point at which LaValle started writing the books he knew he was meant to write (he has […]



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