Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Came for the cover art; stayed for the story

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

by Leave a Comment

I’ve confessed before that I have a habit of buying books based on their covers. I totally bought this book based on the cover. I read the summary and I was like “hm.. it’s probably YA” and I don’t tend to buy YA these days, but then I said “I don’t care- that cover art!” So, it is YA, and like the cover, it’s very, very good YA. I’d say it wears it’s inspiration from Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation trilogy proudly, and does a lot of […]

Graveyard Surf

Night Shift by Stephen King

by Leave a Comment

CBR11Bingo: The Collection The stories in Night Shift, Stephen King’s first collection of short stories, read for the most part like spec scripts for The Twilight Zone. They’re high-concept stories with dynamite premises and most of them have that signature Twilight Zone ironic ending or twist. King is great at establishing a world filled with realistic characters even as the plots themselves are bizarre and occasionally ridiculous. The collection kicks off with “Jerusalem’s Lot”, set in the vampire-infested town of King’s Salem’s Lot more than […]

If Uncle Stevie’s name is on it, odds are I’m going to read it.

Flight or Fright by Stephen King, Bev Vincent

by 1 Comment

CBR11bingo #TheCollection Its no secret that I am not a huge fan of flying. I understand that it is the safest way to travel. But I usually choose to drive if I can. I like to be able to choose my own route, to leave when I want to leave, to stop when I want to stop. I like to be in control of my journey. I think the lack of that control in an airplane is part of what makes me uneasy. Oh, and […]

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

by Leave a Comment

Double Bingo! (2nd Row Down, Third Across- in Red… Blood Red… Mwahahaha) OK, I loved these books in school, loooovvved them. I must have read all three 5 or six times each. So, for the Back to School Square I decided to give the first one a re-read when I found it in my local used book store. This book gets four stars because it is a really good collection of American folk lore, shoot, it gets one whole star from me just for the […]

Cult Fandom

Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg

by Leave a Comment

I knew going in this wouldn’t be a conventional mystery novel but I was still impressed at how well William Hjortsberg followed the traditional tenets of what constitute a hard boiled novel. For about 90% of the book, this reads like a decent PI tale. And though I found the cult aspects to be boring and the reveal to be predictable, I still enjoyed the writing. This is a book that wastes no space. There are 48 chapters and each one exists to move the […]

Buddy Read: Pretty Weak Offering of Old School YA Horror

Help Wanted by Richie Tankersley Cusick

by Leave a Comment

Well, this is another one I that I didn’t read when it first came out. I don’t think I would have liked it as a kid either. This book was too all over the place and that ending was a bit odd since I think that Cusick is leaning towards a love triangle or something. Once again this one is more adult than I was thinking of for the time it was written (1993). We have a character threatening to rape the main character a […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo