Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

When Mental was alive, he was a boss-man with eighteen or twenty children working for him, and he almost never raised his hand against any of them.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

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CBR12Bingo – Debut (2020) This is a 2020 debut novel from the Indian journalist Deepa Anappara. The novel takes place mostly on the outskirts of Mumbai as a group of school-age children seeks answers about a missing friend, whose name is soon added to a list of additional missing people. The novel primarily takes place in their small community neighborhood, the shops, the homes, and the school, but with various journeys more into the interior of the city looking for answers. The novel is primarily […]

The film is WAY better than the book

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

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#CBR12 Bingo: Adaptation (was turned into a movie in 2015 – the film is way better than the book) (Can also be read for Debut) Official book description: Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.   Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.   Rachel has been […]

Lonely Hearts Club

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

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Eleanor Oliphant is a 30 year old accounts worker at a graphic design firm in Glasgow, Scotland.  She is particular, organized and incredibly socially awkward, but without any desire to change herself to be liked- she is, as the title indicates, “completely fine”.  Eleanor’s life is, like her personality, particular and organized- she goes to work and then she goes home, with weekends filled by grocery store pizza and a vodka buzz.  She has no friends or family and as we get to know her […]

We Don’t Need No Thought Control (CBR Bingo: DEBUT)

Educated by Tara Westover

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God, I was so tempted to tag this as horror. I think since most of us are voracious readers or at least striving to be, education is something that this group would value. In Tara Westover’s memoir of her childhood and subsequent awakening to its deficits, education is a four-letter-word. Her Mormon parents don’t home-school their children so much as teach them the bare minimum to get by in life, rejecting not just education, but also doctors and government intervention of most kinds. This was […]

not a series, but out of order none the less

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

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My complaint against Conversations with Friends is wholly not the fault of the novel, the writer, or the characters within. My complaint is petty. I am being spoiled in lamenting that Conversations with Friends is not another Normal People. I know. It’s a wild assumption, I should know better, and the like- but Normal People was perfect. Conversations with Friends is a stepping stone on the path of Sally Rooney, and I wish that I had heeded a friend’s recommendation and read this one first! That being said, Conversations with Friends also worms a way into […]

An Impressive But Grim Debut Fantasy Novel

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

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  I hadn’t heard of R.F. Kuang until recently. It wasn’t until her name came up as John Campbell Award nominee that I decided to look into her work. And then I felt like a bit of a dill – because not only had The Poppy War been nominated for a John Campbell Award (Not quite a Hugo), but it had been nominated for a Nebula and a Locus Award as well. So I’m slightly ashamed I let her go unnoticed! There was nothing for […]



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