Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Life is messy, unpredictable, and seldom tied into neat little boxes”, JVN.

Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness

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CBR Bingo: Queer Lives – Jonathan Van Ness identifies as non-binary (using all pronouns interchangeably, I’m choosing to use he/him since that is predominantly what is used on the Netflix show Queer Eye) and is happily married to his husband. Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love was the pick of my book club.  Most people know him from the Netflix revival of Queer Eye.  Or perhaps you’ve seen the ads for his haircare line on Facebook (he does have gorgeous hair).  At the […]

Friends Forever Ever

The Return by Rachel Harrison

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: In the wild. The story takes place mostly in a hotel set in the wild and also may-or-may-not feature a shifting character. You’ll have to read to find out! It’s such a joy when you pick up a story and connect with the writer’s style. I had been interested in this one for a few years since I saw it at the library. Horror where a best friend disappears and returns but is not the same…that had me curious. But […]

The Ghost That Will Never Quit

The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear by Nat Segaloff

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CBR 15 Bingo – Picture This: This book is all about the visual medium of cinema and television, discussing the Exorcist franchise from many perspectives. The Exorcist is at first glance the story of a mother desperate to save her daughter from evils beyond her reckoning, but in the fifty years since it was first released it had gone on to become a beloved, long-running franchise rife with controversy. I have never actually seen The Exorcist. Of course I know the movie and how iconic it is, […]

A Very Short Murderbot Story

Compulsory (Murderbot Diaries #0.5) by Martha Wells

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In my attempts to conquer my bad reading year (both in quantity and experience) I’ve decided to just read whatever strikes my fancy and stop trying to solve it. At least for now I’m sticking to as many short works or graphic novels/comic books as I feel like reading. I’m also trying to revisit old standbys without re-reading. When I noticed that there was a Murderbot short story I wasn’t previously aware of, I leapt onto it. It is a short story, a very short […]

I want to see this Bond movie

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy: An original Jane Bond Parody by Mabel Maney

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Cbr15bingo sex This book was published in 2001 and somehow I only just heard about it a few weeks ago. It is a hoot, with the kind of silly-named characters and wacky mix-ups that you might find in a Jeeves and Wooster novel. American writer Mabel Maney gives us the story of Jane Bond, the lesbian sister of James, who drinks and sleeps around like her brother but who lives in a run-down bedsit and works at a bookstore in 1965 London. Jane is dealing […]

Do with their death bury their parents’ strife

Brickmakers by Selva Almada

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Chins slightly raised. Eyes locking on eyes. The rest hardly matters: an afternoon of scalding sun, a cloudy night, the middle of a dance hall, the soccer field in the pink evening light, some street in the center of town. Meanwhile, the music is always the same: the panting, the sound of fists, the cracking of knuckles before they land the first blow, the hiss of saliva, the occasional groan when a jab lands right in the liver, and the guys egging them on, always […]



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