Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Truth Doesn’t Matter

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

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Five years ago, Lucy was found wandering the streets, dazed and covered in the blood of her best friend. No one knows what happened, but everyone believes that it was Lucy who killed Savvy – until a podcaster comes to town to dig up the whole case again. I generally avoid the recent spate of mystery books that use podcasts as plot devices. For one, I’m not even a fan of investigative podcasts, and it’s always seemed more like a framing gimmick than anything else. […]

“So if you don’t mind, I need your stupid brain and maybe a reassuring glasses cleaning or two.”

Slayers: A Buffyverse Story by Amber Benson

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my favorite shows of all time. Full stop. So I was immediately curious about this new spin on an old favorite, capitalizing on our cultural zeitgeist for multiverse properties. Why Buffy? Why not! When I learned that the series was written by Amber Benson, i.e., the actress who played fan favorite Tara? Take my money, Audible. And they did. I saw a three-star review of this story that started with “I never watched Buffy but…” Let me go ahead […]

Mossa responded simply with a Classical quotation: “‘Why are men?’”

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

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This seems like a book that would bring delight to many Cannonballers. Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes was a perfect listen to transition from 2023 to 2024. Just over 4 hours long, I listened to Lindsey Dorcus’ narration instead of the booms of neighborhood fireworks, and then finished up this morning with my first coffee of the year. I knew going in that Known Successes was a sapphic scifi Holmsian mystery set on a human colony on Jupiter. What I love is that […]

Come for the Stories, Stay for the Activism

A Portrait of the Piss Artist as a Young Man by Tadhg Hickey

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Best for: Those looking for inspiration from sober alcoholics / people with substance use issues. In a nutshell: Comedian Hickey shares what his life was like growing up in Cork, Ireland, with a mother who was mentally unwell. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: I follow Hickey on TikTok and didn’t realise he has a book. The book is … different from what I expected. Review: I was hoping to squeeze this in as my last review for 2023 but alas, I just missed […]

Selkies are hard to resist

Selkies Are a Girl's Best Friend by Molly Harper

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I love the Mystic Bayou series and picked up the fourth audiobook, Selkies Are a Girl’s Best Friend Goodreads synopsis: Sonja Fong isn’t afraid of a little chaos. As director of the league’s research center in Mystic Bayou, a tiny town in Louisiana that’s home to supernatural creatures and humans alike, she’s responsible for making sure things run smoothly. It’s not an easy task when her daily memos include lines like, “New equipment is needed because the old equipment was destroyed by a temper tantrum […]

A cyberpunk space adventure romance

City of Shattered Light by Claire Winn

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City of Shattered Light by Claire Winn is a YA science fiction story set in space. Asa has been bred to take over her father’s tech empire. They excel at creating weapons and advances in AI technology. When her sister’s brain is used for an experiment, she flees with it to find her a new body. She crosses paths with Riven who has a rag-tag crew living in the slums and taking freelance jobs for the syndicates. One job is to catch Asa, but things get […]



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