Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.”

CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by ANTHONY DOERR

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The book begins: “Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.” Consider me amazed. The review excerpts in the front of the book gush with praise: “sings with beauty,” “sweeping and atmospheric,” “beautiful and enthralling. . . “ Yep. Anthony Doerr has said Cloud Cuckoo Land is a paean to books, but it is also a paean to great stories passed on through generations. Parts of the narrative may get lost, or changed by the teller, but a good story remains. […]

“Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild”

Every Gift a Curse (2023) by Caroline O'Donoghue

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“I can feel our bravery fall away as we journey into the wood. We are not built for this. We are not the folksy teenagers you see in adventure stories. There is no one who’s a dab hand at archery, or who can chart our journey by looking at the last few visible stars.” (371-372) Every Gift a Curse is the third and final in Irish author Caroline O’Donoghue’s YA ‘Gifts’ trilogy, following All Our Hidden Gifts (2021) and The Gifts That Bind Us (2022). […]

I Think It’s Me

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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This review has been difficult to write because this book was good but I didn’t like it. I’m much better when I definitely love or definitely hate something! And this was just…frustrating for me. The story is set over about a week’s time in 1926 London, following a pair of girls who have runaway from York to become stars and inevitably get swallowed in the nightclub scene. And also the ex-field nurse turned librarian who goes to find them. And also the notorious nightclub owner. […]

So much for pacing myself

A Kiss for Midwinter by Courtney Milan

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After The Duchess War, I decided to take a break from Milan just so I wouldn’t finish the series too quickly. Yesterday, I started a novel that is good but kind of grim. Last night, I thought I would just take a look at the next book in the “Brothers Sinister” series, the novella A Kiss for Midwinter, and here we are. This is a holiday story that I know some Cannonballers like to reread at Christmastime, and, in the way of Milan, it offers […]

Fathers and Children

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

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The Duchess War, while listed as Book 1 in a series, is actually a sequel to the novella The Governess Affair. This novel picks up almost 30 years after the events of the novella and focuses on the next generation of characters. As with The Governess Affair, author Courtney Milan does a wonderful job of putting the reader in a specific historical period and includes fascinating information about the social and economic situation of the time, in this case, 1863 industrial England. I am officially […]

At the very crowded intersection of Black History and Banned Books

Black Was the Ink by Michelle Coles

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CBR15passport new to you authors On February 1, the first day of Black History month, the news hit that fascist Governor DeSantis disapproved of the curriculum for the AP African American History course and would ban it from being taught in Florida. Not long after this story aired, it was revealed that Florida officials and AP officials had been negotiating the content of this course for some time and it looks like the AP/College Board basically caved to reactionary political demands and agreed to censor […]



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