Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This is not for you.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

by 2 Comments

Maybe you’re right, Johnny. Maybe you’re right. House of Leaves opens with these words, purportedly put there by Johnny Truant, a young sex lunatic who discovers a manuscript, put together by an old man called Zampanò, about a film that may or may not exist, made by a medium-famous middle-aged photographer named Will Navidson, about a house that he lives in that’s bigger on the inside, all annotated by editors who appear unable to make further contact with Johnny. As a journalism student back in […]

the only Scream sequel I need

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

by Leave a Comment

Take the meta-horror-commentary of Scream and dial it up to eleven; there at the top of the stairs, silhouetted in moonlight and brandishing a rusty machete, you will find The Last Final Girl. Stephen Graham Jones is leaning hard into the tropes of teen slasher movies, and if you aren’t in on the joke it will fly over your freshly-severed-by-garage-door-head. The story is presented almost as a film treatment; close ups, pans, POVS, and audience responses are all written in and used with cheeky abandon. […]

If any of my siblings are reading this, I won’t dispose of a body for you

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

by 1 Comment

Korede is nothing if not efficient. Her sister Ayoola throws problems at her feet, and Korede solves them. Quickly, quietly, smoothly. She loves Ayoola, even though most of the problems she’s been thrown recently have been the bodies of Ayoola’s boyfriends. All killed in self-defense, of course. Ayoola would never do something so awful on purpose. She’s too beautiful, too glamourous, too young to do such a thing. At Korede’s day job as a nurse, she’s just as efficient. She finishes all her work in […]

Would have loved just a smidge more witchcraft

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

by Leave a Comment

Immanuelle Moore knows she must never go into the Dark Woods. Lilith and her coven of witches dwell there, doing terrible things to any good Bethel citizen who wanders in. But her family’s prize ram just ran off, and they simply can’t afford to lose him. She emerges, ramless, with the journal of her dead, blasphemous mother and the sinking feeling that Bethel’s leader, the Prophet, is not as virtuous and strong as he says he is. When plagues descend upon the town and the […]

“…I hunt monsters. And I got a sword that sings.”

Ring Shout or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times by P. Djeli Clark

by 2 Comments

P. Djeli Clark continues to amaze me with his writing. In this short novel, he leaves behind the “steampunk” and adds plenty of horror to a story set in 1922 Macon, Georgia. As with his previously reviewed works, Clark creates a world where magic is real and plenty of strong women of color stand ready to wield it. Ring Shout or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times focuses, unsurprisingly, on American racism and white supremacy. I think we all accept that Klansmen are monsters, […]

Don’t you hate it when you’ve hit the ripe old age of 29 and have experienced all the world has to offer, so you rip a hole in reality so you can cavort with pain demons just for a change of pace?

Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

by 2 Comments

(Trigger warnings for various unsavoriness.) I like my horror with a heaping helping of cheese (Slither, Night of the Comet, Cabin in the Woods), so I have never read any Clive Barker, and I’ve never seen Hellraiser. So when my sci-fi library book club picked Hellbound Heart, the book the movie Hellraiser is based on, I was not sure what to expect. I mean, I was expecting gross stuff and a guy with pins in his face, but I was not expecting such unlikeable characters. […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo