Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Maybe the coolest, mind-trippiest, concept I’ve ever encountered in a book.

S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst

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CBR11 Bingo – Listicle   If you look this book up on Goodreads, it ends up on several of their book lists, including “Best Experimental Books Ever”, “Books With Innovative Designs”, and “Books You Can’t Read On A Kindle”. All of these categories hint at the unique design concept which makes this book the amazing piece of work that it is (and with JJ Abrams (yes, that one) as the co-creator, it’s not a shock). The story is about Jen, a university undergrad who works […]

Silver to Gold

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

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I don’t know what to say about this awesome book. Novik does a great job of developing three characters (Miryem, Wanda, and Irinushka). The setting of the story is great and we have a fire demon, a race of people called the Staryk who live in a wintery world that is adjacent to the Russia the story takes place in. I loved all three of these characters equally (which almost never happens). I wanted a follow-up story though about what happens to Miryem. The ending […]

If you haven’t caused a scene in a psych unit, it’s just because you haven’t been inside long enough.

The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

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The titular devil in LaValle’s The Devil in Silver comes in many forms. Its most obvious is the monster that roams the halls of the New Hyde psychiatric ward at night, attacking patients who leave their doors unlocked. When Pepper is committed against his will after committing a crime he doesn’t fully remember, he quickly comes face to face with this evil. Along with some of his companions on the ward, he sets out to solve the mystery of this hushed up resident of the […]

Read Like a Filler Book

Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman

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Not too much to say here except that this read like a filler book in the adventures of Tess and her private investigation business. It’s pretty apparent she got some of this plot idea from being married to David Simon. It just didn’t work and honestly all of the characters we are used to (Whitney, Crow, and even now I guess Lloyd) felt very muted. “Another Thing to Fall” has Tess almost being ran over by a television crew boat. She’s somehow offered a job […]

She’ll Take Manhattan

Dope by Sara Gran

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Dope is such a solid crime novel that it makes me want to immediately clear my TBR pile and read Sara Gran’s entire catalogue. The problem with that is I’ve tried to read Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead so many times and have never been able to get into it. I just can’t connect with the inner monologue of the titular character. Which sucks because it’s doubtless that Sara Gran is a talented writer. I picked this one up when I saw it on a […]

CBRBingo – Remix. Mrs. Holmes puts the original to shame.

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case That Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca

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CBR Bingo is really the gift that keeps on giving! I struggle a little with the framework I’ve applied to my reading at present as I try to knock out squares, but without Bingo and CBR I wouldn’t have found Mrs. Sherlock Holmes and that would have been a real tragedy. I wanted to get CBR Bingo Remix square and wasn’t ready to tackle more Laurie R. King. Read the first one and was on board for the first 3/4 of the book but didn’t […]



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