Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Rollicking Tale of Revenge, and a Reckoning with Grief & Regrets

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

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Two fathers; one black, one white. Two sons; married and murdered. One driving mission: find out who did it, and make them pay. Ike Randolph got out of jail 15 years ago and has been on the straight and narrow ever since. But cops knocking at a Black man’s door is never a good thing. In this case, it’s the worst thing. Ike’s son Isaiah has been murdered in cold blood, alongside Isaiah’s white husband Derek. Neither Ike nor Derek’s father Buddy Lee had really […]

A slow burn with fire breathing dragons

Assistant to the Villain: A Novel by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

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Like This Will Be Fun, Assistant to the Villain is a romance/fantasy with a good amount of humor  and thrilling adventure thrown in. Assistant is the first book in a series, and I found this one entertaining enough that I will definitely be reading the next installment Apprentice to the Villain (the third book, Accomplice to the Villain, just came out this year). I’ve sort of accidentally found myself reading romantasy lately, and frankly, it’s kind of a nice break from reality. I liked Assistant […]

All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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CBR 17 BINGO: Border, because the murder takes place just after the train passes over the Yugo-Slavian border, resulting in there being no local police onboard. Also, the collection of guests on the train cross many borders into many different nationalities. Last year I received a beautiful Folio Society edition of Murder on the Orient Express for Christmas and have been waiting for just the right time to re-read this mystery. When I planned a train trip across the Canadian Rockies, I knew the time […]

“You take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.” (Bingo)

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

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Nowhere Book Bingo 2025: A book with LGBTQIA-rep CBR17 Bingo: Border (this book is all about a very drawn-out war with borders between the opposing countries constantly changing, depending on who’s currently winning) Spoiler warnings for a 22 year old book. I don’t think I can review it well without revealing some of the more essential plot points. Official plot summary: It began as a sudden strange fancy… Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers […]

You could write the formula for all the future

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

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CBR 17 BINGO: Play (because you know, theater) My freshman year literature professor told me that you should always read a Shakespeare play through twice to really get to the heart of it. I think that’s a good rule of thumb for any worthwhile literature, and I often think about doing so, except there are too many books in the world to read and right now I’m under time constraints with CBR BINGO. But if I were going to follow her amended advice, Arcadia would […]

Refusing to conform to stereotypical gender norms on two different continents

My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende

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3.5 stars Thanks to Netgalley and RandomHouse for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Emilia del Valle Claro grows up in San Francisco in the latter half of the 19th Century. Her mother, Molly, is of Irish descent and was a nun before she was seduced by an unscrupulous young Chilean aristocrat, who left her pregnant and entirely without support (she obviously had to leave the convent). She married Francisco Claro, the intelligent and kind-hearted teacher at the Aztec Pride School, and he’s the […]



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