Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Everyone had strengths. And weaknesses. The important thing was to recognize them. And not expect something from someone who didn’t have it to give.” (CBR Bingo #11)

All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16) by Louise Penny

by Leave a Comment

Through the first fifteen books in the Inspector Gamache series there is only one book I’ve rated five stars, A Trick of the Light. It’s a doozy of a book, and it dug deep into how characters cope with trauma, addiction, and stress, and any number of other forces that would separate us from our best selves. When I finished All the Devils Are Here, the 16th book in the series, I had my first impulse to rate one of these five stars since the […]

An extremely good book. Understatement. #CBRBINGO – Landscape

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

by Leave a Comment

😭😭😭😭😭 Above was my reaction upon finishing this book, which worked its dark magics upon me until my emotions did exactly what it wanted me to do at all times. More on this later. This book also has, I think, the best last line in a novel I’ve read all year. Maybe several years. This book is propulsive and hard to put down. I gave myself almost three days to read it and I read it in half a day. S.A. Cosby, of whom I […]

“No one would mistake you for anything but a tool, Gen.”

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

by 2 Comments

CBR13Bingo: Old Series I started reading this book as a teen when I ducked into a Barnes & Noble during a rainy visit to New York City. I remember sitting spellbound in front of the shelf, highly amused at Gen’s antics, and spent much longer there than I’d intended. And of course I went home with that book! When someone on one of the discords I’m on mentioned reading it for the first time, I realized I still needed something for my pre-2011 series for […]

Horrorwood

What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin

by 1 Comment

Read as part of cbr13bingo: pandemic This is the second time I’ve tried Alison Gaylin’s work and for the life of me, I don’t know why I can’t connect with it. The first book I couldn’t even finish because I found myself not caring about the lead. This one was a chore, even if I enjoyed parts of it. Again, even with the multiple POVs, I couldn’t bring myself to muster energy for the lead. I have mixed feelings about Gillian Flynn but there’s a […]

Build back better

Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin

by Leave a Comment

Gretchen Rubin is a former lawyer who left the legal world for the literary one- she started with Happier, which spawned a podcast of the same name that she co-hosts with her sister, and an expanding line of related self-help-y books, including this one. This was the first of her books that I’ve read, although I listen to the podcast frequently (so I had pretty solid expectation for what I was getting into). Rubin’s overarching thesis for this book is how we get ourselves to […]

History is written by the victors

The Histories by Herodotus

by 1 Comment

Here is the long and storied background to how this brick of a book has been in my possession, unread, for 20 years: I picked up The Histories from the sale rack at A&B sound when I was a romantic undergrad student, smitten by Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, in which The Histories plays a supporting role (it is the book that Ralph Fiennes’ character carries with him everywhere and turns into a journal, pasting in paintings that Kirstin Scott Thompson’s character made of the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo