Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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She/her. Longtime lurker, goodreads addict :D (Learn more about this Cannonballer: wicherwill's Quick Questions interview.)

wicherwill's Reviews:

this one broke me

Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood

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For a short novel, a shorter review…but also this is probably the one that broke me. WHAT on earth is going on in this novel? Having read the original short story that inspired it, I would assume that an editor would do some casual research (or less-than-casual research, given that I assume these books have done very well for themselves) and create a situation that holds up to some scrutiny. Instead we are left with some laughably ridiculous romance set ups, even for Romancelandia where […]

read in case of reader emergency!

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

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Another book I really should have read much sooner, recommended by my dear, brilliant bookbird of a feather Evin. At the same time, though, I’m glad that I had this book squirreled away because I’d been through a bit of a rough patch when it came to novels at this point in the summer. I’d just moved to London, and a number of books I’d been looking forward to turned out to be solid 3* novels–which isn’t a bad thing, but if you know how […]

a delightful book by a delightful artist

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

by 3 Comments

I’ve been a long-time reader of xkcd comics, although perhaps not to the level that some readers get (I completely forgot about “Time” until it had finished, although I have since read the Wikipedia article on the story multiple times). I sometimes imagine that he and Henry Reich of Minute Physics get together and have science parties together (honestly, when I think of what Munroe looks like I just think of Reich). Which is all to say, these books are definitely the sort of non-fiction […]

was rooting for a bit of a different ending

Flying Solo by Linda Holmes

by 1 Comment

These books really hammer home the difficulties of finding a HEA later in life, don’t they? What do you do when you have a life and like that life? How can someone fit into your life without it becoming a whole thing? The story here, set in the same charming whiter than white town of Somewhere, Maine as Evvie Drake Starts Over (we actually hear about Evvie in a voice over about the local high school baseball coach!) (in the midst of a bit of an argument, […]

sweet and slick, but a bit shallow (like…candy?)

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

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This was an interesting book, perhaps a bit too clever for its own good. Having just finished another book with a very similar framing narrative (Homegoing), I can say it’s not always distracting to do the whole “each subsequent chapter is based on something/someone from the prior chapter” thing. That being said, what you need to retain from chapter to chapter is a sense of emotional resonance to string together what are otherwise rather disparate short stories-ish. This book also, perhaps obviously, made me think […]

reading about editing books is very satisfying

Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer

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Read based on the review of KimMie”! I’d say this book is a good corollary to Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, especially if you are someone not-from-Wee-Britain who is now living in Wee-Britain and writing things on a regular basis (e.g., for work). It’s sort of broken into two halves. The first is a very enjoyable meditation on the nature of writing, copy editing, and overall style. Dreyer has a droll voice, likely honed from years of sifting through talented but messing manuscripts […]



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