Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A heart removed, returned, and gifted: Maiden, Mother, Crone

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

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CBR14 Bingo: “Cold” Bingo! – Winter lasts for three years before the start of Ragnarok. Mobius_Walker’s  review of The Witch’s Heart brought it to my attention last year during bingo and now it’s my turn to review The Witch’s Heart for bingo.  My knowledge of Norse mythology is sketchy at best.  It’s mostly gleaned through other works drawing on Norse mythology (such as Neil Gaiman’s American Gods) and pop culture.  This did not hinder my enjoyment of the book.  It also meant that I didn’t have any preconceived […]

I don’t understand how a book can end without an ending

All of Us Villians by Amanda Foody, Christine Lynn Herman

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BINGO – Dough (because one of the authors last name is Foody and the characters deal with classism throughout the book) Let’s just get this out of the way. This book was not for me. Every 20 years, the Blood Veil falls and 7 teenagers fight to the death in a tournament to determine which family will control High Magick in Ilvernath. Common magick is, well, common enough for small fixes in everyday life, but high magick is where the real power is. For centuries, […]

There’s a moment that I thought was going to be a phenomenal ending – and then there was a quarter of the book left

Binti: Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor

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BINGO – Funky (because of the ending(s)) Binti travels back home with a fellow harmonizer from the Desert People tribe, Mwinye because they know that the Koush, a group of people who represent the majority of Earth are looking for Binti and and her Meduse friend Owku. The Koush and the Meduse have been at war for centuries and the Koush have attacked and destroyed much of Binti’s Himba community including her home in search of this one Meduse. Seems like a bit of an […]

You are not the arbiter of knowledge, sir. You are its librarian.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

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CBR14 BINGO: Question square (I was going to give this the Gaslight square until I read the author’s note: “This book began as two simple questions: Do words mean different things to men and women? And if they do, is it possible that we have lost something in the process of defining them.” Question square it is.) This one will definitely be on my favorite books of the year list. Hearbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure. Esme’s father is an Oxford lexicographer working on creating the […]

No one had ever told them that at the end there was a choice and it is not the dying who make it.

The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan

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CBR14 BINGO: Bird square (Full disclosure: this book is not about birds. In my defense of this square filler, the book’s blurb mentions orange-bellied parrots. Parrots do appear in the story, albeit briefly, and I’m counting it because I had to read this book and I want credit for it.) Did you ever read a book that you knew would be considered a masterpiece by a lot of people, could even understand why people would think that and still find the reading of it not worth […]

I am a bad mother but I am learning to be good.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

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CBR14 BINGO: Rec’d Square (Barack Obama’s Summer 2022 Reading List. And, just about everybody’s book club recommends this.) This is a really tough one to review without giving BIG plot points away. Proceed with caution. It’s easy to feel guilty when you’re a mother. When my son was born almost 7 weeks early, a social worker came to visit me in my hospital room while he was still in the NICU. From what I remember from that day 17 years ago, the social worker was kind […]



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