Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Believe the hype

James: A Novel by Percival Everett

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Cbr17bingo TBR (2 bingos) James won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. For some people, “literary fiction,” especially the prize-winning kind, can be intimidating and/or off-putting, but this novel is engaging, exciting and horrifying from page one. James is Percival Everett’s imaging of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim, the enslaved man who accompanies Huck on his adventure down the Mississippi River, gets separated from him, and is reunited with him again near the end. Everett imagines […]

The Avoidable War. AKA The Review I Have Been Avoiding.

The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic War between the US and China by Kevin Rudd

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Never have I given myself so much anxiety reading a book. I first stated reading The Avoidable War late last year. The book is an examination of Sino-American relations, and what the future might hold. Kevin Rudd is Australia’s former Prime Minister, a previous Minister for Foreign Affairs, and is currently the ambassador of Australia to the United States. Prior to this though, he majored in Chinese language and history and worked for  Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT). This gives him a pretty solid background […]

Djinn. Ghuls. Sorcerers. Never had to worry about this in my grandfather’s day.

A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark

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A Dead Djinn in Cairo CBR 17 Bingo: Border This refers to the border between the earthly plane and what lies beyond. *cracks knuckles* Here we go. I’ve been procrastinating on writing book reviews because it’s always more appealing to just start a new book than to sit down and summarize the book I either devoured or endured. With the ones I devoured, I doubt whether or not I can be objective since I was so into it when I was reading and still felt […]

As It Says on the Tin, a Novel in A Flat

Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer

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cbr17bingo Green Now I’m not even gonna pretend to understand the world of semi-rent controlled rental property, not to mention rampant gentrification, of the 1990s New York.  Seems like a product of an endless supply of need and a limited amount of acreage on which to build. Be that as it may, this is the story of a man (jazz musician) and his beloved dog Herbie Mann, a formerly abused mutt saved from an animal shelter death sentence.  They have lived in an apartment in […]

“I’ll watch and I’ll wait. I’m seventeen, and I have a thousand brilliantly hued hazardous sunrises to spare.”

Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid

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CBR17 Bingo: Purple – Behold, the cover. In a world consumed by debt, Inesa’s mother’s compulsive spending causes her to be selected for the Gauntlet, in which she will almost certainly be killed on live TV to wipe out what her family owes. But when Inesa and the girl assigned to kill her, Melinoe, are forced to rely on each other in the wilderness, the line between predator and prey gets blurred. This is a YA dystopian romance which is in many ways a homage […]

Digging Deep

Bull Moon Rising by Ruby Dixon

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CBR17 Bingo: TBR – Ruby Dixon is one of my favorite authors, and despite preordering it, I have been holding onto Bull Moon Rising for a rainy day for some time. (Then I read it in one morning, and immediately devoured the sequel By the Horns that afternoon!) Aspeth is the heiress to one of the oldest holdfasts in the land, but since her father’s gambled away all the family’s magical artifacts, they’re safe only as long as no one realizes how vulnerable they are. […]



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