Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Last week I considered going jogging in flip-flops just to remind myself how sex sounds.”

The True Love Experience by Christina Lauren

by 2 Comments

StoryGraph Easy Reading Challenge 25: A book with two authors Felicity “Fizzy” Chen loves her life and career as a romance writer. The problem is that she’s suffering from a bad case of writers’ block, and when she’s asked about her personal life in interviews or author panels, it’s not like she can confess to never actually having been in love, right? A romance writer should surely have experienced romantic love at some point? With all of her friends happily coupled up, she’s also getting […]

A Thrill Ride From Start to Finish

Famous Last Words: A Novel by Gillian McAllister

by 2 Comments

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister is a suspenseful, thriller/mystery that had me hooked from page one. I hated to put it down and finished it within two days. I had heard about it from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s substack, a great place to go for book, TV, and movie recommendations. This story involves hostages, murder and the joy of reading, and involves very interesting main characters who struggle with the aftermath of a traumatic event. Camilla is a book editor who loves her job. There’s nothing […]

“I would shiver the whole night through”

Knife River (2024) by Justine Champine

by Leave a Comment

When it comes to mysteries, I find the plot to be almost the least interesting thing–as long as it’s not too lazy or derivative or actively insulting to the reader, and fits into the vibes of the story. What I do care about, then, are the vibes–if the vibes are there, if the texture of the story is something I can snag myself on, I don’t really worry about clues or reveals (which I’m bad at predicting anyway). The vibes are pretty immaculate in Knife […]

You know it’s good if they don’t want you to read it

Angel of Greenwood by Randi Pink

by Leave a Comment

Angel of Greenwood is an outstanding YA novel about teenaged love and community set against the backdrop of the 1921 Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood, the “Black Wall Street”, was wiped out in a vicious act of race-based terrorism with businesses looted and destroyed, houses burned to the ground and an actual bomb dropped on the community. This novel came to my attention because a local school district removed it from the 9th grade reading list, sparking protest from students, their parents and faculty. […]

It appears that 19th century soap opera adventure stories are my thing!

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

by 13 Comments

Reviewer Note: In 2024, I started to read the free version of The Count of Monte Cristo that is available from Project Gutenberg (my go-to resource for novels in the public domain). After reading 200 pages, I couldn’t understand why I was so bored. This novel has more action than a Die Hard movie, yet I was struggling to stay interested. I decided to do some research into what’s considered the best translation of this novel, and I found recommendations for the edition translated by Robin […]

“I generally want to commit a felony when I see him. I’m not sure that’s a sign of romantic compatibility.”

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

by Leave a Comment

4.5 stars StoryGraph Easy Reading Challenge 25: A book with two authors Jessica “Jess” Davis is a single mom who tries to make ends meet doing freelance statistics work, mostly working at a local coffee shop, with her best friend writing her romance novels right next to her. She lives in a small apartment on the ground floor of the apartment building her grandparents manage, and they help her raise her daughter, just as they raised her after her irresponsible mother gave up on Jess. […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo