Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“…leaving your country is like dying, and when you come back you are like a ghost…”

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

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Cbr14bingo Adapt/bingo – the story is about Darling adapting to life in Michigan after growing up in a Zimbabwean shanty We Need New Names is what I would call a fictional memoir based on the author’s childhood experience of moving from Zimbabwe to the United States. Darling, a teen living in Michigan with her aunt’s family, remembers growing up in a shantytown called Paradise with her friends, dreaming of moving to the United States, and then experiencing the reality of life here. This is a […]

CBR14 Bingo – Week 10 Check-in

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Welcome to the Week 10 CBR 14 Bingo Check-in! You can see the card and the rules on the kick-off post. This week’s mood: Cake! Happy birthday to my birthday twin Please check your tags and make sure you are using cbr14bingo. Ale – 6 reviews anana – 3 reviews andtheIToldYouSos – 10 reviews ardaigle – 9 reviews, 1 Bingo BlackRaven – Blackout booktrovert – 21 reviews, 5 Bingos Classic – Blackout CoffeeShopReader – 16 reviews, 1 Bingo Debcapsfan – 1 review Dome’Loki –  14 reviews, 1 Bingo drmllz – 3 reviews ElCicco […]

A collection that never really comes together

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

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BINGO – Verse In this collection of poetry, Ocean Vuong, according to the summary on Goodreads, “Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it.” Here’s the thing, though. I didn’t experience any of that. The entire collection feels like Vuong had poems that he had lying around that hadn’t been published yet that sold as a meditation on grief, hoping no one would look too closely. “The […]

“By the time you’re my age, you’ll realize that everything you once thought mattered so much turns out to mean very little.”

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin

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Cannonball Read Square: Star I received this book as a gift for the Cannonball Read Book Exchange last year, so that alone bumped it up my to-read pile. I’ve gotten more into science fiction in the past few years, and I’m always excited to read from non-American viewpoints, so it was an obvious choice for me. I’m a sucker for award winners, and this book won the Hugo Award and Liu Cixin is the nine time (!) winner of China’s Galaxy Award and Ken Liu […]

The sunshine and the grumpy one – now with added crime!

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

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CBR14 Bingo: Gaslight (Marian was lied to and manipulated by the duke, book also set in the Georgian era) Spoiler warning! I’m going to do my best to review this book without spoiling major plot points from The Queer Principles of Kit Webb or this book, but if you want to remain fully unspoiled, you’d probably want to skip this review until you’ve actually read the book. Which you should (read the book, I mean), it’s absolutely marvellous. Marian Hayes, believed to be the Duchess […]

The Importance of Talking About Our Feelings

Fat, Crazy, and Tired: Tales from the Trenches of Transformation by Van Lathan Jr.

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I’d never heard of Van Lathan Jr. before faintingviolet asked me to return his memoir to the library for her. As I’m wont to do, I read the first few chapters the night before I returned it, and was hooked and had to take it out for myself. The title (and first few chapters) lead one to believe this book is about diets and food and all the usual struggles people face in trying to get healthy. And part of this memoir is about Lathan […]



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