Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Family: can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

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CBR17Bingo: “I” for “Intermezzo” President Obama recommended Normal People by Sally Rooney back in 2019, and I was very impressed by the writing. I was already interested in reading Intermezzo, (2024) Rooney’s latest novel. But when Obama recommended Intermezzo as well, it only became a matter of time. I have to admit that the synopsis did not draw me in, and I was a little concerned that Intermezzo would not hold up to Normal People. In a nutshell: there are two Irish brothers, separated by ten years in age, and even more in […]

Murderbot takes on a murder mystery

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

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CBR 17 BINGO: Black (see cover) I’d taken a short hiatus from reading Murderbot, but watching the Apple series put me in the mood again. Apparently it did the same for many fans, and probably generated a bunch of new ones, because when I went to my local library almost every Martha Wells novel had been checked out. Fortunately, I had plenty of other BINGO books to read while I waited for my turn to borrow Fugitive Telemetry. This time around, SecUnit is brought in […]

A king, a princess, the masters of wizardry, and a dragon walk into a grove

The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin

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CBR 17 BINGO: “O” (for “Other”) BINGO:  Rec’d, Culture, O, Green, White I started reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Books of Earthsea last year, and I just recently completed the final (sixth) novel in the collection: The Other Wind. As I mentioned in my earlier review of the initial trilogy, there’s something unique about reading a long-established classic and genre-defining series for the first time. The Books of Earthsea are epics in the vein of Lord of the Rings, and something every fantasy enthusiast should […]

“What must it be like to grow up that beautiful / with your hair falling into place like dominoes”

Gwyneth: The Biography (2025) by Amy Odell

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This is for bingo square ‘favourite’, partly because celebrity memoir/biography is one of my favourite genres, but also because Gwyneth Paltrow has, in one way or another, been the favourite her whole life–favoured of fate and fortune via her parents, acclaimed actress Blythe Danner and producer Bruce Paltrow, cynosure of critics, muse for Calvin Klein and Anna Wintour, tabloid and arty celebrity scene It Girl, Academy darling for her Oscar win at 26 for Shakespeare in Love (1998)—and more chillingly, for a while, as journalist […]

”He still doesn’t know who he’s most scared of: the hooligans with tattoos or the hooligans with ties and suits.”

Us Against You: A Novel by Fredrik Backman

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Cbr17bingo Play (hockey) bingo Us Against You is the second novel in Backman’s Beartown trilogy, something I didn’t realize until I was well into the novel. I haven’t read book 1, Beartown, but as it turns out, it doesn’t matter much. Anything important from that story is more or less explained in the course of this one. The trilogy is about the people of Beartown, a small remote town in Sweden, where hockey is more than just a game. It is the heart of the […]

Not All Serial Killer Novels are the Same

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

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Bingo: Purple You do not feel the same love that everyone else does. Yours is muted, damp, not bursting or breaking. But there is a place for you, in the category of personhood” Danya Kukafa’s Notes on an Execution is an incredible read and proof that you can write a novel about a serial killer where nothing is gratuitous, the characterization is complex, and the plot is full of nuances that lend depth to the work. The book opens with Ansel, a serial killer who […]



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