Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Is this put in the YA category because publishers think sexy faeries aren’t serious enough to be in the ‘adult’ fantasy section?

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

by 2 Comments

The most recent YA books I’ve read are Suzanne Collin’s ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy and Victoria Schwab’s ‘Monsters of Verity’ duology.  Were there heated, passionate moments in those books, yes.  Was there spine tingling sex scenes, nope.  I had the assumption that full on sex was part of the dividing line separating YA from other categories.  But if that is the case, then this series is in the wrong section.  I can’t help but wonder if a decision was made that impossibly attractive faeries having sex […]

To be gorgeous, you must first be seen, but to be seen allows you to be hunted.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

by Leave a Comment

This is a novel that I will be thinking about for a very long time. It’s so far out of my sphere of relatability that it is almost impossible for me to form a coherent thought about it. Not easy to read, and equally difficult to review. Weaving back and forth through time, Vuong’s novelized autobiography is about growing up as a Vietnamese immigrant in Hartford Connecticut in the 1990’s. Written as a letter to his mother who cannot read, the young man known as […]

The concept is better than the execution

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

by 1 Comment

Official book description: The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away. This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all […]

In which I begin my attempt to read and review all 28 of the manga, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Starting with 1-6

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol. 1 by CLAMP

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol. 2 by CLAMP

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol. 3 by CLAMP

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol. 4 by CLAMP

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol. 5 by CLAMP

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle Vol. 6 by CLAMP

by Leave a Comment

I began reading and collecting Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle when it was first released in 2004.  It is written and drawn by my favorite manga collective, CLAMP, a four woman team of artists and writers.  Over the years I slowed down my collecting but always intended to get the entire series.  When Borders went out of business, I grabbed as many of my missing volumes as they had but was four short of all twenty-eight.  Fast forward quite a few years later and my eight year old […]

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Maria Longworth Storer: From Music and Art to Popes and Presidents by Constance J. Moore and Nancy M. Broermann

by Leave a Comment

As a native Cincinnatian, I am familiar with the name Longworth and that family’s connection to local history. Maria Longworth Storer was the founder of and one of the creators at the world renowned Rookwood Pottery. This new biography of Maria Longworth Storer opened my eyes not just to this formidable woman’s business acumen, artistic sensibility and philanthropy, which were already well known and documented, but also to her religious and political views and ambitions. Maria Longworth Storer came from a wealthy society family, but […]

… and just like that, he was ready to build her a French bakery brick by brick with his own hands.

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas

by 3 Comments

The fourth book in the “Lady Sherlock” series is out! I really enjoyed the first three books in Thomas’ gender bending re-telling of Sherlock Holmes. If you haven’t read the books, by all means do! They are delightful mysteries set in the same world as the classic Sherlock Holmes but with a twist. Here, Sherlock is the fictitious brother of Charlotte Holmes created as a smokescreen that allows her to earn a living as a detective in Victorian London. Many of the characters from the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo