Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Whimsical Fantasy and an Alien Invasion Sci-Fi

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

The Seep by Chana Porter

by 2 Comments

Water Moon This was such a creative, whimsical work. It is set largely in a world not our own and follows Hana and Keishin as they search for Hana’s father, who ran a magical pawnshop in which customers from our world could exchange their regrets. On what should be Hana’s first day running the shop after her father retires, she wakes to find that the shop has been ransacked, her father and one of the pawned items is missing, and there are dangerous beings who […]

Doomsday Do’s and Doomsday Don’ts

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

by Leave a Comment

Carl is a normal dude. Except that he is stuck in the apocalypse. With his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut. And there is an alien invasion. Plus, Carl and most of what’s left of humanity are involuntarily placed on a Running-Man-style intergalactic game show. And the contestants don’t know who (if anyone) to trust. And the odds are that they will all die very soon. To stave off the inevitable, the characters have to kill monsters (Are they monsters?) and level up. Is it worth it […]

When I tell you, when I tell you, when I tell you. 

Guardian by Sara Fields

by 7 Comments

Y’all… This warranted an immediate phone call to my former review writing partner, Pattykins. Do you remember several years ago when Patty and I read When Life Happened by Jewel E. Ann and it had such a shocking twist that I set up a separate Facebook group so that we could talk about the twist after you all read it? Guardian by Sara Fields came real close to that level of what the fuck just happened, which I would not have expected at all from […]

Aliens Everywhere

On Earth As It Is On Television by Emily Jane

The Seep by Chana Porter

by Leave a Comment

I loved both of these books. They are both technically science fiction, in that they both deal with alien invasions. But like the best scifi, the stories are less about aliens and more about what makes us human. In Emily Jane’s On Earth As It Is On Television, the ships show up, hover for a day or so, and then just leave. What follows is a bit of a wacky adventure, featuring cats as main characters and an average dad just trying to hold it together […]

If The World Was Ending, Would You Save My Life?

Black Tide by KC Jones

by 2 Comments

When the coronavirus burst on to the American scene in March 2020, the song If the World Was Ending was cycling through the pop station airways. Its theme of finding comfort with an unlikely person at the end of the world (presumably during an earthquake) felt appropriately melancholy, and perhaps reassuring depending on what your situation was. There’s always someone to love us and we find love in desperate moments. I don’t know if KC Jones has heard that song or not but this book felt like […]

What’s Your Flavor of Ice Cream?

Bones of the Past by Drew Hayes

by Leave a Comment

Villain’s Code 1 may have been the first thing by Drew Hayes that I read. Now that it was finally time for a sequel, I was kind of excited to see that world again. Villain’s Code 2 is titled Bones of the Past and that’s pretty much an accurate description on a couple of levels. First, the main focus of book 1, Tori, who is now a new villain starting to find her place in the world, is not as much the focus; but she’s […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo