Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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“She wanted to read stories that had been written with care, by a writer who’d wrestled with words, who might have sworn at the computer and procrastinated by cleaning the entire apartment and furiously dictated notes in the middle of the night”

Magically Generated by Jackie Lau

October 7, 2025 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

Invariably, something that is bothering an author is going to make its way into the book they’re writing. That something for Jackie Lau in Magically Generated is GenAI. While I am largely on the side that Lau takes via her main character’s rants, I thought the note was hit too often and it wasn’t necessary because Lau already had enough character depth with Nora to have the reader empathize with her “done with the nonsense and not trusting anyone new or anything on the internet” vibe she is giving off strongly as this Christmas novella gets started (and throughout, really).    I love […]

Filed Under: Romance Tagged With: cbr17bingo, Christmas novella, Jackie Lau, Magically Generated, novella, romance novella

faintingviolet's CBR17 Review No:44 · Genres: Romance · Tags: cbr17bingo, Christmas novella, Jackie Lau, Magically Generated, novella, romance novella ·
Rating:
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A punch in the gut, but make it literary

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

September 22, 2025 by Fiat.Luxury 3 Comments

I expected this book to be about sexuality and Paris, in the way perhaps that A Moveable Feast is, or any of the other million Paris-based love stories. Honestly, I should have known better.  It is kind of about sexuality!  But it’s also about so many other things that by the end of the book I had stopped thinking about it as a love story at all. On the second page or so, we already know that our protagonist, David, is in Paris, but about […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin, LGBTGQ, novella

Fiat.Luxury's CBR17 Review No:26 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin, LGBTGQ, novella ·
Rating:
· 3 Comments

“So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.”

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser (translator)

September 19, 2025 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

 The Hour of the Star is a book that climbed onto this year’s TBR by the Read Harder Challenge. One of this year’s tasks is to read a work of literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled author. So, I went to books already on my radar to see if any fit the bill and sure enough Clarice Lispector’s final book did just that (Lispector was severely injured in a fire in her 40s and nearly lost her hand). It also was a book […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: cbr17bingo, Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser (translator), literary fiction, novella, read harder challenge, TBR, work in translation

faintingviolet's CBR17 Review No:38 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: cbr17bingo, Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser (translator), literary fiction, novella, read harder challenge, TBR, work in translation ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
A Leopard-Skin-Hat paperback

This one is wonderful.

A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre

September 16, 2025 by Fiat.Luxury 1 Comment

The problem, for me, when trying to finish a whole Cannonball, is that I read a lot of very long books that take me a long time to finish, and then I spend a week in a book coma, and then it’s July. So around August/September, I think oh shoot this is not going to work, and then I find a ton of random novellas so that I can reach my goal. The choice of these shorter books is based solely on feasibility (length). Sometimes […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, a leopard-skin hat, anne serre, books in translation, love is the answer, novella, we are all unknowable

Fiat.Luxury's CBR17 Review No:25 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Fiction · Tags: #memoir, a leopard-skin hat, anne serre, books in translation, love is the answer, novella, we are all unknowable ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

“Because being of utility was more than I had expected, and yet one still does not want to be used. Of use, but not used.”

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

August 27, 2025 by faintingviolet Leave a Comment

The Mimicking of Known Successes can be quickly described as what if Sherlock Holmes, but sapphic and in a sci-fi future where the Earth is uninhabitable and humans have colonized Jupiter?   Malka Ann Older’s resume is a wide combination of things, and it feeds directly into the kind of book that The Mimicking of Known Successes is. We have here a book that examines what happens next when final resources are used to leave Earth, but the goal is to go back. Pleiti is our […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction Tagged With: cbr17bingo, Malka Ann Older, Malka Older, Migrant, novella, queernorm, read harder challenge, Sherlock Retellings

faintingviolet's CBR17 Review No:31 · Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction · Tags: cbr17bingo, Malka Ann Older, Malka Older, Migrant, novella, queernorm, read harder challenge, Sherlock Retellings ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Bleak but Creative

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck

August 19, 2025 by Tracy Leave a Comment

cbr17bingo: borrow – borrowed from my library Well, this was depressing—but also kind of fascinating. Our narrator Soren, a devout Mormon, dies and ends up in Hell, where he learns that there is a true religion (yes, one that is currently practiced on earth), and it’s not Mormonism. Hell is real, but there are different versions of it, and Soren is sent to one inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s story “The Library of Babel” (which I recall reading and enjoying in college). In this library is […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Science Fiction Tagged With: cbr17bingo, novella, Steven L. Peck

Tracy's CBR17 Review No:57 · Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction · Tags: cbr17bingo, novella, Steven L. Peck ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
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