Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“What is it that brings me here to stand like a rock in this river of sound?”

Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History by Robin Wall Kimmerer

by Leave a Comment

I like doing reading challenges because they give me an excuse to dig deeply through my expansive to read list (668 and counting) or give me a reason to add more diverse books to that list. Native and indigenous writers are underrepresented on my to read pile as are books about nature. Read Women this year has tasks for both, so off I went to find more books. Having some success last year with Rain: a Natural and Cultural History when I stumbled across Robin […]

“Please, don’t let me make you cry,” he whispered in her ear. “If something is wrong, tell me so I can fix it. Please.”

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

by Leave a Comment

Earlier this year I read and fell hard for Helen Hoang’ debut The Kiss Quotient. I was taken with her non-traditional protagonists and immediately added her next book, The Bride Test, to my library request list. I’m glad that I did, I enjoyed this sophomore outing more than its predecessor. The Bride Test expands the world Hoang created in The Kiss Quotient. Khai Diep is one of Michael’s cousins we met in The Kiss Quotient (his brother Quan also features and will be the focus […]

“If no one says, This is me, this is what I believe in, and this is why I’m different, and this is why that’s okay, then what’s the point?”

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

by 1 Comment

Well, that was adorably sweet. YA that falls into New Adult Romance isn’t normally my thing, the characters are just so young (but I don’t mind them in movie format? To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was very enjoyable on Netflix but I still don’t care to pick up the book). I know most authors land their endings on HFN for just that reason, but while I’ve enjoyed books like Anna and the French Kiss I generally tend to stay away. But the description […]

Time Spent With Cats is Never Wasted

The Complete Chi's Sweet Home, Part 1 by Kanata Konami, Ed Chavez (Translator)

by Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure I’ve never read manga before I picked up The Complete Chi’s Sweet Home. I know some of the reasons I didn’t pick one up before, (honestly, I blame Sailor Moon TV Show – I didn’t like it at all and there’s something about the overly large eyes typical of manga that bothers me) but it was mostly just a decision I had made that the manga/comics section of the bookstore or library wasn’t for me. I was wrong. While I read more […]

“No, Dad, I’m not interested in getting a Ph.D., I want to make money.”

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

by 2 Comments

I picked this one up based on its very good Cannonball Read reviews and because I needed a book of non-violent true crime for the 2019 Read Harder Challenge. This book did not disappoint. I admit, some how I had missed the entire Theranos story as is broke in 2016, so I can to this narrative entirely unspoiled. I was in for quite the narrative ride. Bad Blood is the story of Elizabeth Holmes and the company she founded at 19 as a Stanford dropout, […]

“We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell”

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

by Leave a Comment

A couple of months ago I read American Like Me and focused my review on how the various contributors wrote and reflected on the way their lives hopped boundaries or existed on the edge of multiple cultures. In Educated Tara Westover is doing a deep dive of her own, very personal, journey of leaving one culture (that of her father) and exploring the cultures of more mainstream Mormonism and mainstream America. It is not a perfect book, and to my mind Westover chose an interesting […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo