Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Snow on a cover makes me emotionally nervous

Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt

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Orbiting Jupiter This was a short novel, bordering on novella. I don’t know where it was recommended to me but I know that any book with a cover in winter is almost certainly going to be sad so I was at least somewhat prepared. The book is from the perspective of a young boy, Jack, whose family brings in a foster kid, Joseph. Joseph is 14 and was placed in foster care after a violent and drug induced incident with a teacher. Joseph also has […]

If you crossed Crazy Rich Asians with Weekend at Bernies…

Dial A For Aunties by Jessie Q. Sutanto

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Meddelin Chan is a twentysomething Indo-Chinese woman living in LA with her mother and being slowly henpecked to death by her loving but overbearing family. She works in the family wedding business with her mother and three aunts (Big Aunt, Second Aunt, Fourth Aunt), and they have their biggest wedding yet coming up. When her mother announces that she’s set Meddy up on a blind date, Meddy decides to just go with it, and see what happens. What happens…is that Meddy accidentally kills her date. […]

“This is weird, Madison. You want me to raise your husband’s fire children.”

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

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My book club chose Nothing to See Here (2019) by Kevin Wilson as our next read. I knew nothing about it and had no expectations. In fact, in my head I had it confused with another book I’d seen on some list. So when I began, I was very confused that the protagonist/narrator was a present-day woman living with her mom. However, I quickly figured out my mistake, and I thoroughly enjoyed this quick, humorous, yet still touching novel. Lillian is 28 years old and living […]

“The doom has come upon me.”

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (Miss Marple, #9) by Agatha Christie

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One part of this was uncomfortably dated, but otherwise this was a fun listen. There is somewhat of an epic red herring (I think that’s what we would call it) in this one, and I didn’t see it coming at all. It helps that I really like Emilia Fox as a narrator. The one downside with her is that she flattens out the characters with American accents, but her British characters are superb. An American film star moves into Miss Marple’s neighborhood (in the very […]

What Do We Do When Doomsday Doesn’t Come?

The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family by John Glatt

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When Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell meet, they have long held alternate beliefs about souls and the coming of the end times. But together, they advance down the path of delusion, culminating in the murder of Lori’s children Tylee and JJ. I knew of this case from fairly recent developments, when the bodies of the children were found last year, but through this book I learned that the murders had been decades in the making. The author follows Lori and Chad from their childhoods, tracing […]

‘Western Australia had missed roll-call, but would be able to attend class in 1901 if John Forrest signed it’s permission slip’

Girt Nation by David Hunt

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  …Western Australia needed a bit of coaxing to enter Federation With Girt Nation, David Hunt’s Unauthorised History of Australia returns, following both Girt and True Girt. Why an ‘unofficial’ history? Probably to shake any potential readers of the misconception that these books are dry, academic tomes, but rather satirical and rather un-sanitized (but no less insightful) takes on Australian history. And what, a non-Australian might ask, is a Girt? Or what is meant by Girt? While the word is not exactly part of common […]



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