Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The World Was Not Enough

It's Better To Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness by Seth Wickersham

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Read as part of CBR13Bingo: sportsball On February 3, 2002, I sat on my dad’s couch in Maryland to watch the Super Bowl. Usually, we had a party but this year, no one really felt like partying. We had just gotten back from a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio and we were both tired. We tuned into the game, promising to root for the underdog Patriots against the highly favored, turbocharged St. Louis Rams even though we anticipated it’d be a rout. On February 3, 2019, […]

More Bertie, Please

Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith

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CBR Bingo: Reader’s Choice (replacing the Machinery square) Series: 44 Scotland Street. I read (and reviewed) Book 1 in 2017. What I remembered about this series prior to reading this book: Not very much–I definitely remembered Bruce, the Gaston of the book, who had some underwear-related adventure in the first book that made me laugh out loud although I can’t remember the details any more. And Bertie, the 6 year old whose mother forces him to wear pink pants because she’s trying to raise him […]

Two Entirely Different Kinds of Pirates

Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao by Helaine Becker, Ill. Liz Wong

What Isabella Wanted: Isabella Stewart Gardner Builds a Museum by Candace Fleming Ill. Matthew Cordell

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But Fortune cares nothing for your dreams. She takes up your life in her cup and shakes it so hard your teeth rattle in your head and your heart roars like a dragon in your chest. Then she throws the bones onto her table of lacquer and jade. Your fate is sealed. – Helaine Becker, Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao Did I know much about Zheng Yi Sao before I read this? Only that she existed, reigned over the South China Sea […]

From Cranky to Charming

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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CBR Bingo – Rec’d I picked up Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove after reading Leedock’s review and witcherwill’s suggestion in the comments. It took me awhile to warm up to the book and its main character. Ove is a widower who lives alone and has a metric ton of quirky habits. He is precise to the extreme. Everything has to be just so. He likes his lines clean and exact. He is excellent at building and repairing things. He gets infuriated by his neighbors ignoring […]

“It’s a little broken down, sure, but isn’t it worth putting it back together?”

The Shaadi Set-Up by Lillie Vale

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CBR13Bingo: Fauna – the puppers! The adorableness of this cover! This is a tropey and cute book, full of second chance high school sweethearts and a bit of forced proximity, though not everything worked out for me. “There’s something about old things, right? Comforting favorites. A place in time you want to return to, revisit, like an old friend.” Rita and Milan have dated since they were fifteen, and now, after Milan’s first year of college, they’re finally getting to see each other again on […]

Not a Whimsical Portal Fantasy, But a Corporate Retail Portal Fantasy

Finna by Nino Cipri

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Oh, there’s always been something a bit sus about that certain Swedish furniture store, hasn’t there? Just a little? About how once you go in, there’s no telling how long it’ll take you to get back out again. Whether or not it’s a new throw rug or some nice meatballs, there’s always something that keeps on trying to draw you away from the exit It’s this feeling that made me pick Finna first out of all the Hugo-nominated novellas to read, as the premise of […]



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