Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Jake

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I love reading! (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Jake's Quick Questions interview.)

Jake's Reviews:

Everything Sucks

Nothing Personal by Jason Starr

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(Tw: Mention of rape) There was a time, maybe as recently as 3 years ago or so, that I really would have enjoyed Jason Starr’s work. Jim Thompson-esque crime fiction set in New York City featuring the worst human beings alive? Gimme some of that. I don’t know if getting older makes me soft or my tastes are more specific or what but Starr’s books, while well-written and thrilling, just don’t it for me. The male characters are ludicrously dumb and evil. The female characters […]

Inside The Hermit Kingdom

The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un by Anna Fifield

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I’d been meaning to read some non-fiction about North Korea. I have one book on Kindle and there are others but this one struck my fancy through recommendations. And it was the right call. This one rocks. As much as I enjoy a Battle Cry of Freedom-esque long history tome, I prefer something slimmer to give me an entry level view on a subject. That’s Anna Fifield’s work right here. She does a great job of pulling back the curtain to the Hermit Kingdom and its […]

London Calling

Hard Light by Elizabeth Hand

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With a new Cass Neary novel out, I realized that I put book three off for so long. That was a mistake. I’ve never enjoyed a misanthropic character more and I think in large part that’s because Elizabeth Hand is such a fantastic writer. She doesn’t make Neary more than it is, she’s an anti-hero plain and simple. But she knows how to write a hell of an atmospheric tale, with touches and nods to photography and the punk scene. I know little about either […]

Sho-Be

Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman

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(TW: this book mentions Kobe Bryant’s rape case and so does this review. The book goes into graphic detail; the review does not.) I always enjoy Jeff Pearlman’s sports books and this one was no exception. Just as he did for the Showtime Lakers, so he does for the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. Personally speaking, I hated those teams. I thought they were arrogant and selfish. I rooted hard against them in the Finals every year. But that was also in the time when I didn’t care […]

Suspense Is Killing

Hipster Death Rattle by Richie Narvaez

A Touch of Death by Charles Williams

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I finished two different crime novels over the last couple of days, one written by a  novice, the other by a legend, both really good in their own respective ways. Hipster Death Rattle I’ve become more familiar with north Brooklyn the last couple of months and boy, does Richie Narvaez know ever corner and haunt. A delightful skewering of hipster culture set right in the middle of Williamsburg, Gentrification’s Ground Zero, the book is as much a satire as it is a mystery. Some of […]

A Spy In The Closet

Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

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Using spy stories to tell larger tales about identity is becoming a popular trope. Most recently, I’m thinking of how Lauren Wilkinson used the genre to talk about black identity against the specter of white imperialism. Rosalie Knecht does it in a different way with a lesbian woman. There are two stories running concurrently with one another: flashbacks to Vera’s time leading up to joining the CIA and her time in Argentina trying to run counterintelligence on KGB factions attempting to facilitate a communist-led coup. […]



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