Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Fashionable People Doing Unfashionable Things

Deliberate Cruelty, Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century by Roseanne Montillo

by Leave a Comment

Content Warning: This book deals with murder, as the title suggests. The book also addresses spousal abuse and suicide. This review mentions the murder but does not touch on the other topics. The novel opens with a bit of snarky back-and-forth between Truman Capote and the Millionaire’s Wife of the title (Ann Woodward), establishing that the two are not on friendly terms. She allegedly uses a slur about his lifestyle (Truman Capote was openly gay) to describe him, and he calls her “Mrs. Bang Bang” […]

The gym is supposed to be my safe space

Set on You by Amy Lea

by 2 Comments

First I have to give credit to Amy Lea for her excellent content note at the beginning of Set on You. Lea notes that the book focuses on fitness culture. Lea states she tries to keep it at the healthier end, but for some readers it may still be triggering. Her main character, Crystal Chen, is a personal trainer who has centered her career around body positivity and exercise. The book contains many references to body shaming, misogyny, and online trolls. If exercise and body […]

MANY content warnings but a beautiful depiction of the author’s hometown and culture

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

by Leave a Comment

Content warning: gun death, drug use, addiction, violent sexual assault with disassociation Oooh I am TORN on the review for this one–I feel like this book has so much promise, but at the end of the day there’s just too much going on for the length and reader’s ability to keep up with plot points. This is a beautiful ownvoices story of Daunis, a half-Ojibwe half-French Canadian high school senior living in Sault Ste Marie. From her French Canadian side, she’s the daughter of a […]

Six Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

by Leave a Comment

CW: abuse, sexual assault, mental illness (violent/hallucinatory schizophrenia) Finally got around to reading this–presumably to no one’s surprise, it’s exactly the type of non-fiction book that would appeal to me. A bit of healthcare, a bit of narrative, tension as to how it’ll all end…catnip. The star lost is very specific to me–towards the end of the novel, when we catch up to the present day (or days closer to present), we transition into a bit of pharma development work which I found pretty lacking. […]

A Long Time Ago, We Used to Be Friends and Now There’s a New Book To Take You Back There

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

by Leave a Comment

CW: suicide, sexual assault This book has STRONG Veronica Mars vibes all over. Like, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how it was recommended to me and 100% of the reason I jumped to put it on hold. Pippa Veronica lives in a small town Neptune that was rocked by a brutal murder years before. Magnetic, troubled Andie Bell Lily Kane disappeared, and the police Sheriff Lamb wiped their hands of the entire case after Sal Singh Keith Mars was deemed responsible in the court of public opinion (after he committed suicide and his body […]

It’s a Wonderful Life (Now With Books!)

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

by Leave a Comment

CW: suicide, suicidal ideation This was an interesting premise but has some deep (spoiler-y) flaws in the magical element that make it hard to get behind it from an entirely logical perspective. The not-spoiler part (available as part of book’s blurb): sometimes, instead of dying, you end up in a midway point which, for our protagonist, takes the form of an endless library in which it is always midnight and which is librarian’d by her old middle school librarian. You can read any of the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo