Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But not everyone has dreams. Some people just are, the way that trees and rocks and rivers are just there without a reason, the rest of the world moving around them.”

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

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CBR17 Bingo: Citizen – Though Cora is a citizen of the United States, her race – as well as the race of the many murdered Asian women in this book – makes everyone around them perceive them as foreigners to the point that they are stripped of the safety that their citizenships were supposed to have given them. Cora works as a crime scene cleaner during the COVID-19 pandemic – after witnessing her sister pushed in front of a train, the gore doesn’t bother her anymore. […]

Scary Librarian

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hogdson

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Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: purple cover. See photo. I haven’t done much fantasy this year but as the season changes into fall, I’m starting to get the itch. This was a recommendation from Max Read, who as I’ve said before is my personal Oprah and who I’m more hit than miss with. This one was a hit. A murder mystery, a trial for an emperor-ship, a compelling fantasy with fun tales all rolled into one, this is a creative yarn from Antonia Hogdson […]

Sister Act(s Bad)

Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh

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Read as part of cbr17 bingo: family. The plot of the book is two sisters on trial for murder, both accused of killing their father, both of them blaming the other. I think what I liked about the earlier Eddie Flynn books is slowly petering out. A shame. I liked that the books were about a smooth operator who hustled in the courtroom. I have a thing for watching and/or reading competent hucksters do their thing. There’s just something fun about a person who navigates […]

Revenge on a Train

With A Vengeance by Riley Sager

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Before embarking on a journey of revenge, dig a lot of graves. More graves than you expect to need and then maybe one more for good luck. You just never know how many you might need to achieve it. Stay flexible. Anna Matheson lost her entire family due to the actions of six people. She’s spent the last twelve years plotting their downfall, culminating in a twelve hour train ride from Philadelphia to Chicago. She’ll confront them with their crimes and then hand them to […]

Wherever You Go, There You Are

The Killer Question by Janice Hallett

Kiss Her Goodbye by Lisa Gardner

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CBR17 Bingo: Migrant – Both books involve characters who move to places they expect no one knows them and try, with varying success, to rebuild themselves into new shapes. The Killer Question by Janice Hallett – 5 stars Sue and Mal run a perfectly average British pub with an above average weekly quiz night, but the arrival of a mysterious new team that dominates the competition and the discovery of a body in the nearby river sends their lives into a tailspin. This is my […]

It’s a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose.

Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge

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CBR17 Bingo: School – Literacy is considered dangerous in this world, but Mosca wants to keep learning what she can, which is why she goes with Eponymous Clent and searches out the secret school. Real life provides her a different kind of schooling. Armed with just her ability to read and her murderous pet goose, twelve-year-old Mosca Mye hitches her fortune to that of the smooth-talking conman Eponymous Clent and gets herself tangled up in an adventure that could change the world she lives it, […]



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