Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

About faintingviolet

CBR 4
CBR 5
CBR 6
CBR 7
CBR 8
CBR 9
CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR18 Participant
CBR18 Levels

A reader and caffeine addict who consumes all sorts of books, some just more frequently than others. Your CBR Book Club Maven with over a decade of Cannonballing experience I believe in the beauty that comes from a common goal of reading, reviewing, and discussing. Also, Fuck Cancer. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: faintingviolet's Quick Questions interview.)

faintingviolet's Reviews:

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And the better the world liked seeing them fall.”

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

by 1 Comment

When narfna announced her Re-Readathon and I went through the prompts, two books immediately jumped to mind as ones I wanted to tackle based on the prompts. The first up review-wise is a revisit to Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels. When I first read Lord of Scoundrels, I did it via audio, I knew then that it hadn’t given me the experience with the book that was possible. I could see the mechanics of why I liked this book, but it had all felt at a bit […]

“… the critics who shaped our modern idea of the novel in English so frequently dismissed women writers that the systematic excising has a name. It’s called the Great Forgetting.”

Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney

by Leave a Comment

Is this book my platonic ideal of a non-fiction book? Maybe. Probably. So much so that I have in fact already ordered and received my own copy of the book. Why am I not rounding it up to 5? I don’t know.   The topic was always likely to draw me in. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf chronicles the women authors that would have appeared on Austen’s own shelf. Yes, please – that sounds great. But it’s probably the author’s point of view that pushes this one over […]

Tackling a Classic

Oedipus the King by Sophocles

by Leave a Comment

Usually, the Read Harder Challenge tasks are broad, and it’s up to you to decide how you want to fulfill them. But every so often they come up with a very narrow one that leaves me annoyed. This year, that task is #8 – a classic from the Zero to Well Read podcast (which is fair enough; they are attempting to promote their podcast to potential listeners). However, it didn’t give us a lot of choices. Some I had read (The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were […]

“Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”

An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister

by Leave a Comment

When I’m deciding what books I want to pick up with my limited time and attention (friends, my attention is possibly at an all-time low) there are certain types of stories which are more likely to grab me. When Jodi McAlister’s An Academic Affair and its pair of rival academics embarking on a fake marriage for work stability plot came to my attention, I felt pretty good about it. For a rivals to lovers book to work, you must buy both parts equally. As I type that, I feel […]

“You can be the most virtuous woman in the world and you’ll still carry the blame, not just for your desire but for everyone’s desire.”

Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julia Langbein

by 1 Comment

Very quickly into reading this I knew that I was going to have a terrible time trying to describe what the heck this book is. I will do my best, because I know that coming across someone unpacking what the heck the standard blurb on this is talking about can greatly impact your taking a chance on it in the first place (my reading of it is narfna’s fault, she reviewed it in her April 30 Books in 30 Days part 2 vlog, if you […]

First Book in a New Series

Revenge of the Sunshine by Jackie Lau

by 2 Comments

I have read a lot of Jackie Lau novels, and at this point I’ve got a pretty good idea what one of her books is going to contain and if I’m going to enjoy it. It will have emotionally layered backstories for both of its main leads; be set in the larger Toronto environs; food, beverage, bars, and restaurants with delicious descriptions will appear; there will be some quite steamy scenes; mental health representation will appear in no small way; and the value of true […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo