Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Miss for me, hit for you?

Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas

by Leave a Comment

CBR16SweetChallenge #Exciting (excited to read, excited to share with others becuase this needs to be read/known about) The concept of mental health and representation of a not usually talked about community had great potential. However, the execution of Where Black Stars Rise did not work for me. Things were too abstract and messy for my eyes to focus and my “reader eye” lost the flow of things. I was not always sure where I was, who was who and what was what. For the right […]

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small

Zanzara by Gloria Vitanza Basile

by 2 Comments

Born in poverty and raised in a squalid orphanage, Phaedra’s life transforms completely when her identity as a prince’s illegitimate daughter is revealed, vaunting her into the lap of luxury. But she has a long, tough path to tread still before she will reach her happy ending. I really, really love the crazy bloody bodice rippers of the 1970s and 80s. They are always wild and adventurous, often with a strong historical grounding, and take you careening through the kind of heroine’s journey that leave […]

Life and Death in the Asylum

Broadmoor Inmates by Nicola Sly

by Leave a Comment

CBR 15 Bingo – Violence: On their path to the asylum, nearly all of the people profiled in this book committed violence to others, and many to themselves as well. Broadmoor is a well-known psychiatric hospital that originally opened in 1863, but until the 1950s or so, the “criminally insane” people sent there were mostly there for confinement rather than effective treatment. I’ve always enjoyed true crime, but having also recently become intrigued by attitudes toward mental illness throughout history, I was excited to have this […]

Parent Trap meets Freaky Friday without the magic but lots of music

Mirror to Mirror by Rajani LaRocca

by Leave a Comment

Awhile back I found a reader copy by Rajani LaRocca called Mirror to Mirror. I was interested in it due to the diverse characters and the prose poetry format.  However, as I started reading (at lunch) it was going slowly, and I put it aside. I picked it up months later and was able to finish it finally. It was mostly worth the wait. I say mostly, as for me, there were a few bumps. I was not a fan of some characters, and a […]

‘I’ve got something more important to offer. Something I’m sure Mom cares about more than anything. “Mommy. I am . . . so skinny right now. I’m finally down to eighty-nine pounds.”’

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

by 4 Comments

CBR 14 Bingo: Monster The author’s mother is rather a monstrous one, which is only compounded by the codependent relationship between the two of them. Jennette McCurdy was a household name as a child actress, but it was because her mother wanted it, not here. In the aftermath of her mother’s death, she faces a slide into eating disorders before she understands the complex relationship between her and her mother that led her there. I think everyone has an occasionally fractious relationship with their mother, […]

Playing for keeps

Trigger by N. Griffin

by Leave a Comment

Trigger is a disturbing look at child abuse and the toxicity of one family, and how the one person who is supposed to help you can be the one person who you fear the most. The life of our narrator is set up so that when an answer is given, three more questions occur. And yes, there are literally trigger warnings due to the language, violence, and implications some scenes present.  And the scary part is some of what N. Griffin writes about is pulled […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo