Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

*Such* a weird book, but I could not look away from it.

Identitti by Mithu Sanyal

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 4 Book 24/30 A German professor who has been passing as Indian for her entire adult life is found to have been born white, and because she has placed herself in the public eye and has become a pop culture figure/icon, controversy explodes. (The author was inspired by the cases of people like Rachel Dolezal—who gets a couple mentions in the book—to write a story engaging with a fictional and heightened version of that story.) We see through the […]

“Well, that’s science fiction television for you, though,” Abnett said. “Someone’s got to be the red shirt.”

Redshirts by John Scalzi

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This book is a satirical love letter + wink + elbow nudge for fans of Star Trek. As any Trek fan knows, those wearing redshirts get killed. Minor background person you don’t know anything about getting more backstory? Killed. Someone about to do their “last away mission” before moving on? Super killed. Though on the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid (which exists in a different universe) the redshirts are dying in a similar fashion, they band together to try to figure out what is going […]

The Knights of the Round Table vs. Climate Change

Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee

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Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. The realm is in peril, and the knights of the round table have been called back to duty once again, waking up from under the earth to fight . . . climate change. Among other things. Here’s a little bit of the blurb: “An immortal Knight of the Round Table faces his greatest challenge yet—saving the politically polarized, rapidly warming world from itself—in this slyly funny contemporary take […]

Adventure! True love! Sex with monkeys!

Candide by Voltaire

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CBR15 BINGO: Europe, because Voltaire, he is very French It’s been so long since I read Candide that I can’t remember whether I was in high school or college at the time, yet the refrain, “Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds” has been stuck in my head like a 1980s Mountain Dew commercial. So when I was looking for a good candidate for the Europe BINGO category, I thought, “Why not revisit Voltaire?” To sum up Candide, a young […]

Sometimes the Hype is Real

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

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I don’t love reading books that have all the buzz. The ones on all of the must read most anticipated best of lists. That get picked for all of the book clubs. I’m not inherently opposed to popularity. If anything, I find myself too swayed by all of the opinions. I’m overcritical or underwhelmed usually. It helps if I let some time pass, so it doesn’t feel so in my face. Library hold lists make this easier. My hold for Yellowface came in and I […]

Panic! At the Book Show

I Didn't Do It by Jaime Lynn Hendricks

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I don’t have any perspective of being a published writer but as an aspiring one, I know all writers have an ego. You kind of have to; I mean, it takes a certain level of arrogance to think people are going to pay their hard-earned money to read what comes out of your brain. Hours, days of their lives they’re never gonna get back they’re willingly going to give you money for this experience. So yeah, you have to have one. However, I just attended […]



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