Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Bothari43

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When writing a genre-based lim'rick / Avoid lengthy 'post-apoc'lyptic' / Though CB reviews / Have broadened my views / My fave is still chick-written sci-fic (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Bothari43's Quick Questions interview.)

Bothari43's Reviews:

“I’ve gone mad. The hedgehog was probably a warning sign. The saints only know what I’ve really got in my pocket.”

The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher

by 4 Comments

Cannonball introduced me to T. Kingfisher, and I introduced my mom, and now she is obsessed. She’s read everything her interlibrary loan can get her, and now she’s ordering them off the internet. I stole this one from her while I was visiting this month before she’s even had a chance to read it! It’s absolutely marvelous. I couldn’t help but compare Rhea to Tiffany Aching, as she’s a teenage girl dumped into magical mayhem against her will, but this feels a bit darker. Though […]

Quick Questions with a Cannonballer: GentleRain

by 9 Comments

You read a wide variety of stuff (manga, history, middle grade mysteries, Wilkie Collins!). How do you decide what to read next from your TBR pile? I tend to flip back and forth between fiction and non-fiction, while continuously reading comics, so I tend to decide by staring at the books on my bookcases until something strikes me. I feel like it’s often less of a rational decision than an internal urge for a certain genre or author, but I’m often circling my bookcases for […]

With Joyce as my witness

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

by 3 Comments

This book is like a hug for your soul. And since I listened to the audio book, for the ears. I loved Thursday Murder Club, and when some trusted fellow readers told me the second one was even better, I was skeptical. But it’s so good! I love Joyce. I love Elizabeth. I love Ron and Ibrihim. Did I mention I love Joyce? The plot doesn’t really matter; it’s enough to get to hang out with these wonderful characters. But, in case you need more […]

A bazillion miles away and still too close to home

Goldilocks by Laura Lam

by 2 Comments

This is another mid-apocalyptic sci-fi story where the Earth is in trouble and a group of astronauts is trying to save the day. Except it was written in 2020, and the author is taking some of the real life atrocities and pushing it out to the worst possible conclusions, and reading it in 2022, it seems all too plausible. There are multiple plagues and thousands of refugees as climate change makes vast swaths of the planet unlivable. The president is a fundamentalist wingnut, abortion has […]

Fine, but not for me

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

by 1 Comment

This was a library sci-fi book club pick, and I’m not sure it’s one I would’ve finished otherwise. I know Le Guin is the Grandma of Science Fiction, and I’ve read and enjoyed her before, but this one felt like a Philosophy 101 class and I don’t think I was quite in the mood for it. Urras is the main planet, crowded with haves and have nots and doing the normal things society does, except for an added focus on science and physics. Anarres is […]

When having nosy neighbors is a good thing

Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths

by 3 Comments

A murder mystery where the victims are authors of murder mysteries! This one had to be fun to write. It’s the second book with detective Harbinder Kaur (after Stranger Diaries), but I don’t think you have to read the first one to jump in. This was a great example of “group of nosy civilians gets involved and digs up clues while making the actual police officer’s life more complicated” genre. The civilians are a nurse at a care home, an 80-year-old resident of that care […]



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