Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Kin in Far-flung Places

A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao

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CBR17 Bingo: Diaspora – This story is intimately bound up in the experience of the Indian diaspora in colonial Fiji, who went to work there as indentured servants but were in reality little more than slaves. Caught between demotion and disgrace, Indian police officer Akal Singh is instead posted to colonial Fiji, where an investigation into the vanishing of an indentured Indian woman from a sugarcane plantation is complicated by the political pressures within the British Empire. I’m a sucker for an unusual setting in […]

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

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This one I stopped and started a few times. I just could not get into it. This is the second Brodesser-Akner book I have read and at this point I just need to hard pass. I think this could have worked if I cared about any of the characters. But I ended up despising Ruth and Beemer. And I found Nathan and Jenny exhausting. The book just felt so long and I got tired of reading about the Fletchers. I know that Brodesser-Akner was going […]

A Bit of a Dud

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

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Bingo: Red Stephen King’s Finders Keepers is the second book of the Bill Hodges trilogy. The first book was Mr. Mercedes, which I enjoyed. This second book was a bit sluggish, although the pacing was fine. The story itself didn’t have a lot of pep. The book centers on Peter, a teenage boy who comes across a stash of money and dozens of Moleskine notebooks full of writings. The stash was put there by a criminal named Morrie, who robbed and killed his favorite author […]

The final case for Susan Ryeland?

Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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CBR 17 BINGO: Red (see cover) Anthony Horowitz is back with what is most likely the last Susan Ryeland/Atticus Pünd mystery. I’m sad to see the series wind down, but how many times can a person get involved with the same franchise to disastrous results without breaking the audience’s suspension of disbelief? (This isn’t Jurassic Park for heaven’s sake.) If you’re a fan of Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, you might be wondering how Horowitz could squeeze another novel out of this premise, what with […]

Creating seasons where none exist (Groundhog Day part II)

On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle

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CBR 17 BINGO: Green (see cover image) Translated by Barbara Haveland Back in April, I read the first installment of Solvej Balle’s seven-part series On the Calculation of Volume and was impressed by its poetic sublimity. I wondered how she could possibly extend the concept into six more novels. I enjoyed part II, but I’m still wondering where this is going. To recap, in part I, bookseller Tara Selter is experiencing “broken time.” She appears to be caught in a loop where she keeps experiencing […]

Time keeps on slipping into the future

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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CBR Bingo: Migrant (this book features the last of the human race fleeing a dying earth and travelling in stasis to find a habitable planet). This one is actually a re-read for me. I first read Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky back at the beginning of 2020 and loved it. I did intend to read the next book in the series (Children of Ruin), but for whatever reason, never ended up getting around to it. By the time I did get around to it, I’d […]



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