Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Cherry Covered Apron

Behind the Scenes by Karelia Stetz-Waters

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When business consultant Rose is hired to help frazzled director Ash make her return in Hollywood, a romance begins to bloom between the pair – now if only they can manage not to get in their own ways! I was in the mood for a cute sapphic romance this winter season, and Behind the Scenes delivers in spades. Rose and Ash have excellent chemistry, and there are a pair of adorable, ever-hungry pugs, but what really sold me on this book was the humor. There’s […]

What Ever Happened to Baby Darren?

Public Secrets by Nora Roberts

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After being rescued from her abusive mother, Emma goes on to live a charmed life with her father and his wife – at least until a tragedy befalls the whole family. This is an older Nora, and one I picked up because the premise reminded me of those family saga/career girl dramas from the 80s that I love, and indeed I wasn’t disappointed in that regard. In many ways this is a coming-of-age story for Emma, and there was plenty of drama and excess to […]

“…we’re the dream that humanity creates to make sense of the shadows on the cave wall.”

American Gods: Author’s Preferred Text by Neil Gaiman

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I watched the first season American Gods on Starz back in the day, and I really enjoyed it but never bothered with the rest of the series once I heard that the show runner and several stars were out of the project. I’ve had the novel on my shelf ever since, but its length (500+ pages) was a little off-putting. It’s a funny thing though that the “long” stories are often the ones that read the fastest while the “short” ones can be a slog. […]

…kurou, which could be translated to ‘suffering’

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

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BINGO!!!! Bingo tile: monster; the first big monster is the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans from (primarily) the West Coast and the subsequent theft of their property by white Americans; the second monster would spoil the mystery, but is monstrous! In Clark and Division, Naomi Hirahara crafts a mildly diverting mystery and, more compellingly, a moving portrait of the tremendous challenges facing Japanese and Japanese Americans post-Pearl Harbor. Aki Ito, her parents, and her older sister, Rose, are forcibly interned in Manzanar after Pearl […]

“Only problem is, he also has a terrible case of…the frets.”

Stuntboy, In the Meantime by Jason Reynolds

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Bingo tile: Star (I know, I know, but I am determined to Bingo this year!) both for the amazing production on this auidobook and because Zola and Portico are stars I am doing something(s) completely different (for me) with this book, so let’s see how it goes! I am reviewing a kids book that I listened to with my son (who is 9), and I will do my best to reflect my experience and what I heard from him. Stuntboy, In the Meantime, by Jason […]

Dystopian Utopia

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

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Imagine a future where war, poverty, crime, illness, disease and death have been conquered. Sounds like paradise, right? But the thing is, without death, the world becomes overpopulated and all the problems return. In Scythe, the first book in a trilogy, Neal Shusterman imagines this world where all knowledge and information is overseen by a god-like universal information storage system called the Thunderhead and where the world population is “managed” by individuals called scythes. Scythes are feared and revered and are an authority unto themselves. […]



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