Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“No one survives a war’s front lines without ghosts clinging to them.”

Angels of the Pacific by Elise Hooper

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CBR 15 Bingo – Hold Steady: To survive the war, Tess and Flor have to make a stand and hold steady in their efforts to undermine the Japanese occupiers. After Japan invades and occupies the Philippines during WW2, American nurse Tess and Filipino university student Flor must do whatever they can to survive and help those around them. In my ongoing quest to find WW2 historical novels which don’t simply rehash the experience of the London Blitz or the French resistance, I have looked to the […]

Crashing Off the Rails

The Orphan's Letters by Glynis Peters

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Kitty, an orphaned young woman, works to gain her Red Cross qualification as she continues to work as a nurse during World War Two. I picked up this ARC on NetGalley a while ago, and came to realize sometime after that that WW2 historical fiction is generally not for me. I enjoy learning about the time period and the experiences of ordinary people, but I find that the plots zigzag between melodramatic and dull too much for my liking. But my NetGalley shelf needs to […]

“It’s not like I grow up to be some great war hero or any all-important savior but thanks to my parents at least I get to grow old. Not everyone does.”

Saga (Volume 9) by Brian K Vaughan

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Back again with another Saga installment! I can’t believe I’m almost finally caught up. What a roller coaster this series is. I saw that when this series first came out, it was billed as “Star Wars meets Game of Thrones” and I give two thumbs up to that comparison. The only thing I would clarify there is that it’s less “Star Wars meets Game of Thrones” and more “Game of Thrones set in a Star Wars-ish Universe” because every other volume has it’s own Red […]

“If we were all a little more selfish with our own lives instead of being in such a hurry to defend everything to the death the universe would be a much less scary place”

Saga (Volume 8) by Brian K Vaughan

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With a backdrop that is distinctly western, this volume starts with a wooden sign that says, “Welcome to Abortion Town!” And how you feel about that as an opening to a graphic novel (offended? jarred? intrigued) is a pretty good barometer for if you would like this series. I find it overall to be a jarring delight, but it’s not for everybody (she says, knowing she recommended it at work, and now someone she works with is reading it and she immediately had an OH […]

“This war was a choice.”

Wake of War by Zac Topping

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Wake of War author Zac Topping is a veteran, and it shows. In Topping’s debut novel, war is not treated as a glorious thing, but rather as an absurd cancer, or a toxin. The reader leaves with the distinct feeling that any sort of violence damages everyone involved. Somehow, despite the gravity of the subject, Topping wrote an entertaining book. He has a knack for simultaneously shoving the reader into the chaos of a firefight, while also slowing things down to more closely inspect the […]

“The happiest families I ever met were all frayed…but they were also tighter than a hangman’s noose.”

Saga (Volume 7) by Brian K Vaughan

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I’m still a million years behind in Saga and this will be the last installment I read for 2022, which is quite the note to end on. As it’s the tale end of the holiday season and I still have Christmas on my brain, to sum up my feelings I will steal from the immortal words of Kevin McCallister as he looks at Buzz’s girlfriend’s photograph, “Woof.” This installment of the series is a doozy. Hazel has finally been reunited with her family and they […]



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