Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Yvonne Names Three Reasons, But There’s More

Three Reasons To Run (Weddings with the Moks #2) by Jackie Lau

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Oh yes, this is what I’m looking for in a Jackie Lau book. When I received my ARC copy of Three Reasons to Run, I immediately picked up a copy of the first in the series, Four Weddings to Fall in Love to introduce me to the world that Lau would be working in within her larger Toronto-verse. While it was an enjoyable read, it wasn’t the strongest Lau. But I shouldn’t have worried, Three Reasons to Run is a crisp, warm, emotionally resonant book […]

“The gods know what would happen if all us females were unsupervised. Absolute anarchy. Cities would crumble.”

House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J Maas

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CBR16 Bingo: Part One – The first 300 pages. Part Two – The second 300 pages And Also… Part Three – The last 300-odd pages. It was a long book. Bryce is lost in another world, separated from Hunt and her friends and utterly shellshocked from the horrific knowledge she has gained about the Asteri. To keep everyone and everything she loves safe, she will have to figure out how to destroy – and that’s if she can manage to find her way home first. […]

A Prison of a Book

The Curse of the Marquis de Sade by Joel Warner

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CBR16 Bingo: Scandal – The Marquis de Sade lived about every year of his life scandalously, and there’s plenty of scandal that follows around the scroll and Aristophil as well. The Marquis de Sade is a divisive figure in literature, with as many people arguing for him being a visionary as there are for him being a mere maniac. But less known is the complicated journey of the manuscript of his best-known work The 120 Days of Sodom and how it came to be involved in a […]

“The companionable silence they shared stuck to his bones and made him feel comfortable in his own skin. A feeling that was hard to let go of.”

Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up by Charish Reid

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I practically devoured this book, I loved it.   Charish Reid has a real knack for writing stories featuring people of color in higher education and their love stories. This book is another in that milieu, and it comes down hard on the University industrial complex which runs on the exploitation of its work force, especially its adjunct staff. The titular Mickey Chambers is one such adjunct, and we open the book with her finding out that she will only have one course for the […]

“Dreams, they’re for those who sleep”

The Virgin Suicides (1993) by Jeffrey Eugenides

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Content note: The novel contains graphic death scenes and deals with suicide extensively. This review also discusses suicide  and death quite briefly. Bingo square: Earth day: the novel deals with pollution and decay and environmental ruin I was by way of being a movie buff for a while in the early 2000s (which is how I found Pajiba), and I watched Sofia Coppola’s 1999 adaptation of The Virgin Suicides then, and read the book afterwards. I think it was that way around–I remember being surprised […]

Let’s Keep This Conclave Ragin’ Bros!

Conclave by Robert Harris

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: detente. A cardinal attempts to keep peace while the church world is suspended over who will be the next Pope, despite shenanigans happening on the side. Also, shoutout to Spencer Hall, whose tweet eleven years ago still makes me laugh and is the title for this review. When I saw the trailer for Conclave, I knew I would be reading the book it was based on no matter what. I have mixed feelings on Robert Harris’ books but they […]



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