Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I can’t fully get on board the Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

by Leave a Comment

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad won both the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction, and part of me is sheepish that I can’t get behind that level of admiration. While the novel is powerful and at times poignant, I had a fundamental issue with its execution. The novel focuses on Cora, a young slave on a Georgia cotton plantation whose mother was infamous for having been the only slave to ever escape that estate. Cora is an outcast even […]

When Ghosts of the Past Narrate the Story

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby

by Leave a Comment

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby My rating: 5 of 5 stars I came across “Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All” as I was reading through the National Book Award winners. “Thirteen Doorways” was nominated for best young adult. The story is set in the late 1930’s as the Depression era gives way to WWII. Frankie, the protagonist of the tale, is in an orphanage with her two siblings in Chicago. What was immediately odd for me was the fact that the […]

Cuddle up by the fire, and maybe phone a friend?

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

by Leave a Comment

This is a little (224) book that packs a real punch. I’m always intrigued to jump into a National Book Award Winner and when I saw this on my library book club “to read” for next year, and as I struggle to climb the peak of my cannonball, I saw a win/win opportunity to get this one checked off. If you judge a cook by its cover and see a swell dog, fun covers, and a sweet title you are going to be sorely disappointed. […]

*bell tolls* SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

by Leave a Comment

Trust Exercise punched me in the gut, kicked me while I was down, and still I could not leave it alone.  I was once an insufferable THEEEEAAAAATER kid, and the teens on display here made my blood curdle- out of immediate and inescapable recognition. I was a pretentious brat until far too recently (still pretentious, just too old to be a brat) and roiling guilt flowed through my veins throughout the entire book. I have been working diligently on keeping my ideas off of other […]

“Sometimes the world don’t give you what you need, no matter how hard you look. Sometimes it withholds.”

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

by Leave a Comment

In 2015 I read Ward’s Men We Reaped and I was fascinated with the way Ward’s language in a memoir was tinged with a bit of magical realism, and also just a larger than life feeling. At the time I put Ward on my radar – this was an author I was interested in a further relationship with. Once reviews for her 2017 work Sing, Unburied, Sing started coming in I knew this would be the one. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a big, award-winning book […]

“Nothing was worse than someone wanting you to talk when the words you needed to say hadn’t even been invented yet.”

Far From the Tree by Benway, Robin

by Leave a Comment

cbr11bingo – Award Winner! Grace’s steady life is shattered during her high school junior year when she becomes pregnant. Her previously reliable boyfriend dumps her and removes himself from any rights to the child, and her parents are on eggshells around her.  She decides to give the baby up for adoption, which in some ways makes sense: she herself was adopted by her parents, and maybe her baby, who she nicknames Peach (the size the baby was when she realized she was pregnant), will be […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo