Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Making a human

The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu

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The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu is an emotional graphic novel with layers that could be a bit “much” as we deal with a larger “cosmic” connection. The more surface level is the love story we have with ourselves and each other, the ideas of being human and humane, and most importantly, connections on a smaller scale that we find with others and ourselves as we grow. The illustrations are unique, but familiar. They give you what is needed, but sometimes you do need to fill in a […]

A little family road trip from and to Hell

Odessa by Jonathan Hill

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I stole this part of the review from Goodreads/François Vigneault: “Odessa is the first long chapter in a sumptuously-drawn post-apocalyptic tale following the journey of teenager Virginia Crane.” That does not seem “steal worthy” but it starts my feelings of this book. It is a long “chapter to the story of the Crane family. I am not sure I would say “sumptuously-drawn,” but it does have its own unique style.    This is the surface story: three children (ages around 9 to 17) travel through a post-apocalyptic world […]

Shana Tova, y’all!

Days of Awe: Anthology by Aviva Blakeman, E.S. Wilder

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This cover! It’s gorgeous. I laughed because a good friend of mine has frequently used the anthology’s tagline to describe Jewish holidays to me, “They tried to kill us, we survived. Let’s eat!” As gorgeous as the cover is, the stories inside are fantastic. Aviva Blakeman and E.S. Wilder have put together a fantastic anthology. From the introduction to the end of the last story, Jewish authors have written stories that center Jewish resistance. The stories range from the time of the Spanish inquisition to […]

Green to red, machinehead

All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

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This book delighted me. All Systems Red provides thought-provoking characters and ideas without sacrificing a single bit of fun. It’s both enjoyable and insightful, especially about personhood. This series came highly recommended to me by fellow sci-fi enthusiasts. For this first book, I checked out the audiobook narrated by Kevin R. Free. Based on the strength of this first entry in the Murderbot Diaries, I will go ahead and buy the attractive box set of the physical books. I would like to keep them handy to […]

Not for me.

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

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This one keeps souring in my mind the longer I’m away from it. The problem here is that I do not find stories about flighty people escaping from their responsibilities and the people counting on them–whether or not it was “their fault”–inherently interesting. In fact, I kind of hate them. Maybe other people get more kicks out of exploring their shitty unconnected left behind relationships with parental figures, but I find the whole thing unpleasant and not rewarding in any way. The one thing I […]

There’s a universe where I can still eat gluten and dairy. I find this comforting.

Self-Portrait With Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka

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I’m so glad I picked this little book up against my normal inclinations. The cover makes it look like serious lit-fic, but it absolutely isn’t. This is a light sci-fi/speculative book about a woman named Pepper who was adopted as a baby but whose biological mother, Ula Frost, is a famous reclusive portraitist who is said to be able to pull her clients’ doppelgängers out of her paintings from alternate universes. When Ula seemingly disappears, Pepper is contacted by lawyers and made executor of her […]



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