Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

We care too much, or not enough

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

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It feels weird putting these two in the same review, but there you have it. I’ve been struck by the dreaded reading slump.  The Plot (Jean Hanff Korelitz) ** The plot of The Plot: author Jacob is struggling. His first novel made a modest impact, but didn’t sell well despite positive reviews. His second novel went ignored entirely. To make ends meet, Jacob teaches writing to a group of wannabes and one of them tells him the plot of a novel he is planning to […]

“I made promises to you that I’m not sure I can keep.”

Forever... by Judy Blume

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Most years I try to read a banned or challenged book as part of Banned Books week (which I’m VERY late for this year). There are many reasons I do it, but one of the most important is that I want there to be library requests in my system for these books as its one way to help keep challenged books on shelves (there are lots more suggestions for actions in this Book Riot article). This year I was having a tough time deciding what book to choose as I’ve been struggling in the past few years […]

“People like to believe that there is nothing we do not know. The human body, for instance: people tell themselves that all of its mysteries have already been uncovered….

Not Quite A Ghost by Anne Ursu

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The genome has been mapped. The systems studied. Everything is known. Just like theworld, they tell themselves. The mysteries have all been solved. There is nothing that could possibly lurk beyond what humans can apprehend. They are wrong. When a virus slips its way into a body, sometimes that body reacts in unexpected ways. It marshals all its defenses and attacks; after all, the virus does not mean well—and then, sometimes, even when the intruder is gone, it keeps attacking. It doesn’t even remember why. […]

“It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”

All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles

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I am ever so pleased with my first Aardvark book! Only my third 5-star rating of the year (although a couple have been close).  I chose this one on vibes – I was partway through Band Sinister and enjoying myself, loved the cover, and was in the mood to say yes to some gothic mystery goodness. All of Us Murderers is KJ Charles playing with all the gothic novel tropes and putting her own spin on making the queer textual in a genre where it was subtext for most of its history.  The book starts with […]

Not a hinge in sight

All Superheroes Need Photo Ops by Elizabeth Stephens

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When I reviewed Elizabeth Stephens’s first book in the Supers in the City series, All Superheroes Need PR, I started off “Hinges? I don’t know her” – Elizabeth Stephens, probably. Well, in All Superheroes Need Photo Ops, Stephens proves that she knows exactly what a hinge is and she enjoys listening to them swing wildly in the wind. Stephens obviously knows how hinges work, because she knows exactly how and when to take them off and throw them away. Before Roland reverted to his alien form […]

“Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands: Book 2 of the Emily Wilde Series: A Novel by Heather Fawcett

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To be honest, it took me three weeks to get through this book. Not that it was overly long (at 341 pages, I don’t consider it a long book), and not that I hated it (though to be honest, I would probably have to work up an emotion to it past “meh” to get towards something like hate), but because my reading of it was completely overshadowed by the fact that Gallifrey, my 17 year old Calico cat, died in the middle of reading it, […]



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