Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Pioneer Woman

Frontier Grit: The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women by Marianne Monson

The Paper Daughters of Chinatown by Heather B. Moore

by Leave a Comment

Frontier Grit – 3.5 stars In this book we meet twelve women who traversed the American frontier in search of their dreams, though what these dreams were and the paths they took to them vary extraordinarily. As a child I devoured Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Though I’ve have quite a lot of bubbles burst about her depiction of her childhood (check out Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires to learn more), my interest in those so-called pioneers who tried to ‘tame’ the Wild West still persists, […]

Triggers. Messed up humans. Realistic and fantastical and surreal situations.

Bolero by Wyatt Kennedy

by Leave a Comment

The rating I am giving for Bolero is a bit complicated. It is a 3 for the story and a 4 for art. There is a 2 for the obvious shock for shock value and a 2 for some oogy bits. There is another 4 for this is not an easy book, and I was not always in the moment, but I know I could be if the circumstances were more ideal towards reading. Therefore, it is a very solid three  that had its moments […]

“Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came before us, in order to make sense of ourselves.”

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

by Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo – Dwelling I am a huuuuuuuge fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid. The first book of hers I consumed was the audio version of “Daisy Jones and the Six” which I loved 5000; the same can be said for everything else of hers I’ve read. She is pure MAGIC, an author who is so talented and adept at making historical fiction seem like non-fiction that I’m a little suspicious she may have gone down to Georgia and fiddled against the devil in order to […]

Wolf Women

Watch the Girls by Jennifer Wolfe

by 3 Comments

Whew. This book is something. Don’t know if I loved it or hated it but I know I won’t forget it! I almost quit it five times and yet I couldn’t put it down. I can usually handle bleak, depressing crime fiction but oh man, this one is bleak!* It mostly works until it doesn’t…but the ending kind of comes together but it doesn’t? I really need more people to read this so I can parse it out. A few more points… -Loved: Jennifer Wolfe […]

Obviously You Should Shoot the Intruder in Your Hidden Pool

The Proud Breed by Celeste de Blasis

by Leave a Comment

After an unexpected encounter by a hidden pool, Tessa and Gavin fall in love, but their lives together in a rapidly developing California will not be easy. Before this book I’d only read de Blasis’s Wild Swan trilogy, and it was glad to see that we see some of the same hallmarks here – strong, complex characters with an undeniable connection, no matter how many times they might fall away from each other for a time. In fact, I might argue that Tessa was a […]

Bringing L.A. to the Water (and movies, and church)

The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist

by Leave a Comment

My Los Angeles kick continues with a good one. Being a big fan of Chinatown, I’ve always been curious about the truth behind the actual story to hydrate Los Angeles. Throw in the stories of the founding of the movie industry and the story of Aimee Semple McPherson’s controversial life and I’m in. Gary Krist delivers. He doesn’t get too bogged down in the technical aspects of the respective fields he’s describing. I felt like I got a healthy picture of each particular person involved: McPherson, city engineer […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo