Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Sweet and and a Little Salty

Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results by Josh Gondelman

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Best for: Fans of gentle storytelling and humor. In a nutshell: Comedian and writer Gondelman tells stories from his life, usually with a humorous take, and often with a bit more self-awareness than one gets from such books. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: I’m most familiar with Gondelman as a panelist on the NPR show Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and I follow him on BlueSky, but didn’t realize he had a book, so figured I would check it out. Review: This is […]

A little disappointing

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren

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I’ve read and enjoyed two books by Christina Lauren*: The True Love Experiment and The Soulmate Equation. So, I decided to go looking for more by them, and that’s when I found Something Wilder (2022). I was excited to read this one because Christina Lauren had already proven themselves to me, and because this book takes place in Canyonlands National Park. I love Utah, and I also love a good romantic adventure, so I had high expectations when I began listening to this audiobook. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this […]

Enemies to lovers at a performing arts summer camp

Into the Woods by Jenny Holiday

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Why: Learning that I adore Jenny Holiday’s Christmas in Eldovia trilogy, Emmalita recommended that I should read Into the Woods and I’m glad I did! What: Into the Woods is a contemporary romance.  Wild Arts summer camp is in last minute need of two artists in residence for the July and August sessions.  Through acquaintances Gretchen Miller and Teddy Knight end up filling in for the dance and instrumental music programs respectively.  After an initial round of wrong impressions and then bonding through camp experiences, Gretchen and Teddy […]

I’m glad the author is enjoying international success

Stargate - en julefortelling/Brightly Shining by Ingvild H. Rishøi

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Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Local author (the story takes place about 15 minutes from where I work) The full review of this on my blog contains spoilers so if you don’t want to know how the book ends, and why I can’t rate this book higher, skip the paragraphs I’ve highlighted. Ten-year-old Ronja and her sixteen-year-old sister Melissa are used to disappointments, living alone with a father who only occasionally sobers up long enough to hold down a job for a month or two. They’re […]

A fun read, but possibly too light-hearted

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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3.5 stars Twenty years before the events in Legends & Lattes, Viv is a young and relatively inexperienced mercenary, who gets badly injured fighting undead monsters while hunting for a powerful necromancer. Her mercenary band leave her in the quiet and mostly empty seaside town of Murk to heal up and recuperate. She worries that the group are going to leave her there, but thankfully, to take her mind off her fears, she encounters the local bookshop owner, who manages to persuade her (Viv has […]

“You can’t legally brag about your son since you named him “Carl”.”

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

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Jolene copes with her soul-sucking job by pretending to be invisible and ranting at her coworkers in emails in white text. But when she’s found out, she’s sentenced to anti-harassment training with the cute new HR rep and restrictions on her computer – except it turns out that she’s accidentally been given access to the emails of every single of her coworkers instead. Often funny and often sad and very much filled with petty office politics which verge just on unbelievable sometimes. Jolene is a […]



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