Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

One curse, one family, a lifetime of growing up

Salt Magic by Hope Larson

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Salt Magic by Hope Larson and illustrated by  Rebecca Mock is an experience book. You read it, you have an experience. Mine is different from yours, and yours is different from the third guy’s reading. Things are if Alice in Wonderland met Wizard of Oz and something else…. I can’t put my finger on it. The artwork is the main character, though we are being told the story which is narrated, in text, by a young girl in the years right after World War I. […]

“Well, that’s science fiction television for you, though,” Abnett said. “Someone’s got to be the red shirt.”

Redshirts by John Scalzi

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This book is a satirical love letter + wink + elbow nudge for fans of Star Trek. As any Trek fan knows, those wearing redshirts get killed. Minor background person you don’t know anything about getting more backstory? Killed. Someone about to do their “last away mission” before moving on? Super killed. Though on the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid (which exists in a different universe) the redshirts are dying in a similar fashion, they band together to try to figure out what is going […]

Rescue Mission in the Desert

K-9 Security by Nichole Severn

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When Elena’s younger brother is abducted by the cartel that’s been slowly taking over the town, she must turn to Cash and his canine partner Bear in her crusade to get him back. I’m a sucker for a dog on the cover. And Bear is a working dog, which is a novel idea for someone whose own dog lives for sleeping, eating, and sniffing every blade of grass he comes across on his daily walks. This is an action-packed story, where the main characters take […]

Constructive Criticism

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

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CBR 15 Bingo – You Are Here: The setting is incredibly self-contained, with nearly all of the action taking place in the same isolated house on a beach. After Emma leaves a negative review on a self-published book, she discovers that some authors take such things very, very personally. I picked up this book because it amused me that someone would take the unfortunately true tales of authors coming after readers who’ve left negative reviews on their books (generally online, but at least in one case physically) and write […]

The doggy does fine

Mission Yozakura Family vol. 5 by Hitsuji Gondaira

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Bingo 11: Relation-ship The manga Mission: Yozakura Family is pretty trope-y but still mostly entertaining. In volume 5 a there are a handful or inter-personal relationships that make some progress as well as an actual ship (ok, small fishing vessel and also a submarine makes a brief appearance; that counts). The main mystery of what really happened to Taiyo’s family makes a bit of progress when it turns out there’s a connection that he didn’t know about to his ‘wife’s’ (they’re about 16, so that […]

Sometimes things should be left in the past

Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler

Raise the Titanic by Clive Cussler

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Why can’t I learn this lesson? Some books shouldn’t be re-read if you want to continue to remember them fondly. But maybe it’s better to have ripped the band-aid off so you don’t recommend them and regret it later? When I was in middle school, I discovered the books of Clive Cussler. They read like a cross between Robert Ludlum and Indiana Jones. A dashing hero, his best friend, obscure bits of history woven into a densely plotted adventure, classic cars, and while they’re all […]



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