Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

…when we were infinite.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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CBR11 BINGO: Banned Books This is a frequent flyer on the Office for Intellectual Freedom Top 10 Most Challenged Books list (2004, 2006-2009, 2013, 2014). The tragedy is that the books that often speak frankly and clearly about real issues of growing up and learning how to navigate in the world are frequently found so threatening. It’s as if the books are instructional manuals for bad behavior rather than stories that can offer hope, validation and solace. “Charlie” begins writing a series of letters to […]

…we would never outgrow the cautionary tales.

Whisper Network by Chandler Baker

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CBR11 BINGO: Reader’s Choice (Sub for Two Heads are Better Than One Square) I now have a Pavlovian response to any Reese Witherspoon book club pick. I immediately request it from the library. I think that I just need to accept this about myself. Set in the law offices of a successful Dallas sporting good company, the story is part mystery and part social commentary. It’s an up close look at the unfolding of the #MeToo movement in a corporate office where the man poised […]

How to get a book banned in six easy steps

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

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CBR11bingo: Banned Books BINGO! Vertically: Youths, Illustrated, Classics, Rainbow Flag, Banned Books The Banned Books bingo square is one of my favorites in CBR Bingo. I like to peruse lists of banned books and see what foolishness is causing people to get up in arms. I also like to combine the square with something I’ve been wanting to read, and Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple was the perfect choice. It’s been on my TBR list for ages, and I was surprised to […]

A Regency romance with a very foul-mouthed parrot

The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare

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Lady Penelope Campion lives quite happily alone in London, aided only by an old, pretty much deaf housekeeper and surrounded by her unusual menagerie of rescued animals. There’s a highland cow, a goat, an otter, several chickens, a dog with only the use of his front legs, a whole bunch of kittens and a particularly foul-mouthed parrot. Her friends dote on her and even politely try to eat her horrendous vegetable meat substitutes without complaining or making a fuss. So when Penelope’s aunt comes to […]

Debut novel worth noting (Cannonball and Bingo Blackout)

Oksana, Behave! by Maria Kuznetsova

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Cbr11bingo Reader’s Choice, substituting for Two heads are better than one Bingo Blackout/Cannonball! I picked this one up for the cover, but I bought it because it is related to the interests of my youth — Slavic studies and history. Maria Kuznetsova’s debut novel manages to be both funny and serious as she describes the life of Oksana Ivanovna Konnikova from her childhood, when the family moved from Kiev to Florida, until her adulthood. Oksana has to deal with loss, uprootedness, unrequited loves, and disappointing […]

“Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.”

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

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Cbr11bingo Banned Book, bingo #10 & 11 A frequently challenged classic according to ALA Slaughterhouse-Five propelled Kurt Vonnegut to fame when it was published in 1969. It has been banned in a number of school districts over the decades for language, sex and religious references. Slaughterhouse-Five is  Vonnegut’s attempt to write about his experience as a POW in Dresden during WWII, where he witnessed the firebombing that destroyed the city and caused the deaths of 135,000 people. Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war classic that shows through […]



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