Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I live for the burning snap of a freshly carbonated beverage.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. by Samantha Irby

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It turns out that I am not very good at making friends unless I am already trapped in an insufferable hellscape with someone who doesn’t mind my cracking a few inappropriate jokes as we circle life’s drain. ― Samantha Irby, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. Forget figuring out how many dates until it’s appropriate to have sex—I want to know how many we have to get through before it’s acceptable to stop. ― Samantha Irby, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. Have […]

Just a couple of moms and their talking cats

Urban Tails by Ilana Zeffren

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I first found Urban Tails by Ilana Zeffren as an online reader copy, though the book has been available since May 2022. I was having trouble reading it online due to the illustrations. The text bled into the images. The colors were dull and this made things feel unfinished overall. The story wasn’t engaging me. But there was something about it that made me want to read it. I knew there was something there. Perhaps it was because it was about Israel. Or because there […]

A long review with a lot of thoughts

Transitions: A Mother's Journey by Elodie Durand

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I used to book mentor a kid that came to my store. He was smart, but mentally and physically young. One day I learned he wanted to go by “James” not “Jamie” anymore. Why? You see, his neighbor “Bob” left one day and when he came back, she was “Jamie” and (hopefully) she was happy. Now, since “James” was a kid, it is expected that he wouldn’t understand this. After all, transgendered people were not in the mainstream as they would be even a few […]

Murder in the Philippines

Some People Need Killing by Patricia Evangelista

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Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in my Country (2023) by Patricia Evangelista was another Barack Obama recommendation. It is a non-fiction account of Rodrigo Duterte and his “war on drugs” that killed thousands of innocent people when he was President of the Philippines from 2016-2022. Patricia Evangelista is a journalist from the Philippines who personally investigated and reported on many of these extrajudicial killings that were attributed to Duterte and his regime. I knew (and still know) very little about the Philippines, although […]

Fun with Signs

Begin One Way: A Children's Book of Road Signs by Ioana Stoian

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Recently I had the opportunity to read a book by Ioana Stoian. When I started to look for other books by them, I located the title Begin One Way: A Children’s Book of Road Signs (illustrated by Sophia Vincent Guy). At first, I was thinking how could anyone do a fun or interesting book about road signs? It had been done before; and honestly, it was a bit dull. However, while I am not jumping up and down saying this is the best book ever, […]

The kids aren’t alright

Taboo by Hannah Ferguson

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In Taboo, 25-year-old Hannah Ferguson urges her readers to break down Taboos; to talk about what we are conditioned not to – sex, money, friendship, and career. She argues that building and allowing continuing taboos around these subjects is holding women back from overthrowing the patriarchy and forging stronger ties among the sisterhood. Publication of her book follows from her recently published article about her abortion, which she shared in the lead-up to both the USA election but also the Queensland state election (that’s in […]



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