Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Taking a Triple Cannonball into the Rising Sea Level!

The Way the World Ends by Jess Walter

Boca Raton by Lauren Groff

Controller by Jesse Kellerman

There's No Place Like Home by Edan Lepucki

Falls the Shadow by Skip Horack

The Hillside by Jane Smiley

At the Bottom of New Lake by Sonya Larson

by 10 Comments

Is it hot in here, or is it just these stories? oh, the temperature is definitely rising folks, from GLOBAL WARMING! I struggle with looking climate change in the face; I am concerned, I am trying to do my part, but the onslaught of facts is just too depressing. Climate-change based fiction, though, clicks in a way that I was not expecting. I suppose there is a level of empathy that transcends the “just the facts” nature of the news when the same information is […]

California here we come; right back where we started from

California by Edan Lepucki

by Leave a Comment

Some dystopia novels are trying to be literature, some are trying to be good trashy fun, some are trying to be profound and fail terribly, some are just way off the mark. Then there’s the category I’d put California in, which is the kind of book that doesn’t really seem sure of what it’s doing, and thus never really makes a mark on the genre or the reader. Meet Cal and Frida! They’re a typical 20-something couple in the 2050s just trying to make it […]

I don’t want to go: California

by Leave a Comment

After loving Station Eleven, I wanted to roll the dice on another post-apocalyptic kind of book.  This was a great book.  It was a little more haunting to read because, unlike S11, the world known by the characters gradually fades away into a memory.  Electricity gets too expensive.  Gas gets too expensive.  Mobile phones become “The Device,” as antiquated as a shoe form.  People with money congregate into armed and protected enclaves called “Communities” and, like exclusive law firms, let in only the elite, those […]

This did not live up to its promise.

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been reading a lot of dystopian fiction these days. I think the sense of impending doom surrounding academia, plus my graduation with no immediate job prospects in sight has me retreating to dire fiction to be comforted. Or maybe that’s what I’m telling myself? Either way, I’ve got a lot of reading in my stack, and Edan Lepucki’s California has been on a lot of 2014 lists. I thought I would give it a shot. Cal and Frida are a married couple who have […]

Millennials are so screwed if this is our future.

by Leave a Comment

  I was surprised to find California by Edan Lepucki on several “Best” lists this year. While I did find it to be an easy, quick read I didn’t find the story itself to be as entertaining or engrossing as many of the reviews lead me to believe it would be. I didn’t regret reading California, but I certainly wouldn’t credit Lepucki with having written “a gripping and provocative debut novel” either. Frida and Cal live in the woods. Alone. In a shack. Apparently the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo