Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A really good fantasy debut, with one glaring flaw.

The Justice of Kings (Empire of the Wolf, #1) by Richard Swan

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This was promising! I’ve had my eye on it since it was published, and an audio sale at Libro.fm finally gave me the incentive to pick it up. I was originally reading The Pariah by Anthony Ryan at this spot in my February TBR, but listening to that book was a better sleep aid than it was a story*, and after only a couple of hours of attempting to listen, I swapped it out for this one, and that was a great decision. I particularly […]

Continuing The Story

The Bullet That Missed: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman

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Best for: Those who enjoy a clever, complicated mystery. In a nutshell: Those diamonds from the last book? Someone else wants them back. Also, the group looks into the ten-year-old unsolved murder of a journalist. Worth quoting: N/A (Audio book) Why I chose it: I enjoy the series. What it left me feeling: Pleased Review: Another winner from author Osman. I was intrigued, guessed a little bit but not the rest, and found that any twists made absolute sense and were not out of left […]

A book about butts!

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke

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This was a fun book, just as the cover and (extremely good) title promised. Butts: A Backstory is a cultural microhistory of the butt that pretty much covers every aspect of it that you would want or expect it to. We start with the evolutionary purpose of the butt and then move on to such topics as: Sarah Baartman (“The Hottentot Venus”, and why everything about what happened to her and even that moniker is super racist and tragic); the impact of butts on fashion […]

“Desire was not passion and passion was not love.”

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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I have been slow to jump on the Silvia Moreno-Garcia bandwagon, mostly because I read one of her earlier books and it wasn’t for me. Then everyone lost their minds over Mexican Gothic. And I did nothing! But I’m glad I eventually gave her another shot, because this book shows me that I can like what she does, though it still didn’t perfectly gel with my tastes. SM-G is a genre hopping author, and with The Beautiful Ones, she takes on a fantastical version of […]

Glow baby, glow

Phosphorescence by Julia Baird

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If you’re to Google this book, you’ll note that it is the winner of the Australian Book Industry BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD (emphasis not added, this just seems to be an award that comes with CAPITAL LETTERS). You’ll read that it is about ‘awe, wonder, and things that sustain us’. If you access the audiobook version, as I did, you’ll experience hours of Baird’s breathless, softly spoken and earnest voice in your ears. You’ll hear her talk of surviving cancer, and relationship breakdowns. She […]

The Racism of People Who Love You

The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging by Samira K. Mehta

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Book: 5 starsAudiobook narration: 5 stars The Racism of People Who Love You is a very good book, and you should read it. In seven thoughtful, compelling, and sometimes (frequently) devastating essays, author Samira Mehta examines the broad concept of what she refers to as “mixedness” through the lens of her particular lived experience as the daughter of a South Asian immigrant father and a white American mother. The essays are about her and her family and about race, culture, and belonging both within and beyond her family. […]



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