Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Times are changing and not for the better

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett

by Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo 3: Time Shorefall is the middle part of a trilogy and you can definitely tell; everything goes from bad to worse for nearly everyone, good and bad. The time element actually has several applications here: first, there’s a race against time as the good guys Sancia, Gregor, Orso, and Berenice try to stop the return of first hierophant Crasedes who is probably mega-evil, and when that doesn’t work, they discover Crasedes might be able to use scriving to manipulate time, or he’s somehow […]

Am I Too Dumb for this Book?

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

by Leave a Comment

Crystalclear listened to the audio version of Mr. Fox and wasn’t sure how she felt about it, but it’s speculative-leaning and maybe reading the actual book would be a different experience, so she suggested it to me. While I do think it was better to read it than to listen to it (Oyeyemi does a lot with fonts, blank space, and paragraph structures that make way more sense looking at it than listening to it), I also am not totally sure how I felt about Mr. […]

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse by John Joseph Adams & Others

by 1 Comment

I’m putting together a new class for work that is supposed to cover cross-cultural perspectives, but also be speculative, but also be relevant to ‘kids these days’, so what better place to start than with an anthology of post-apocalyptic fiction specializing in pandemics! Chocked full of terrifying tales, Wastelands: The New Apocalypse includes a variety of authors from different places, cultures, and perspectives all writing about humanity’s deepest and darkest fears. From deadly spores and burning suns to viruses and carcinogenic air, this anthology mines for […]

Probably should have given up the ghost

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

by Leave a Comment

cbr14bingo Minds Level 2  At first The Taking of Jake Livingston was enjoyable. There was enough familiar to make it comfortable, but new enough to not be the same-old-same-old. Even a couple of clichés could be forgiven for they did move the story along. Then there were the clichés that bogged it down. Then the ending (SPOILER) where our narrator walks away free of any consequences from his actions. What could have been something different turned into the same old thing. I was rooting for […]

I’d Pay So Much to See this as a Movie

The Change by Kirsten Miller

by 2 Comments

When picking up the actual book I ordered at the library, I was lured in by their “new releases” display. The book jacket of The Change promised some menopause-induced magic, a murder mystery, and three bada** women taking down some powerful men on the backdrop of a coastal New  York town. So of course I picked it up, and it was an absolutely delightful ride. Harriet, Nessa, and Jo are three women in their 50s going through a rough time. Harriet’s husband leaves her for a […]

When Good is Evil and Evil even worse

The Subtle Knife The Graphic Novel by Philip Pullman

by Leave a Comment

cbr14bingo Snake  Level two Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass is a dark read and The Subtle Knife is even darker. Therefore, when either is in a graphic novel format, you are not only reading the dark you are seeing the dark. In all its nasty glory. The theme of religion becomes more center stage, and the violence of all worlds comes to a bloody ending (and start and middle) in this adaptation by Stephane Melchior. The Subtle Knife is not an easy read, and the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo