Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A down-on-his-luck weredogs misadventures

 Lumine Volume One: A WEBTOON Unscrolled Graphic novel by Emma Krogell

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“Oh boy, this looks like a manga series,” I said to myself (I knew it was me, as I recognized  my internal voice and was wearing my You Don’t Gnome Me socks). “Nope, I won’t read….” But then I saw the cover. Lots of blue, black and this shock of white. (Fascinating. So simple, but that is a real draw. Oh, is that a white wolf?) Then I saw that fateful phrase, WebToons. Oh! I like WebToons. And so, I said, “Self,” (again, it was […]

Keep an eye on your enemies, but watch your family closer

The Keeper by Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes

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Some days I just cannot get into reading (and you know I like to read). And when that happens I take a break from reading. This happened recently, and when I came back to it, I found the graphic novel,  The Keeper by Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes.  I was not sure what I would be reading about. It was not giving away secrets: there is a girl on the cover; some designs look like it could be a combination of adventure and maybe fantasy. […]

A Man and a Muse

Mother Christmas Volume 1: The Muse by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

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I would have preferred reading the completed story of Mother Christmas Volume 1: The Muse, but this first volume is strong, if not open-ended and left me with a few questions. Valya Dudycz Lupescu had a curious mind as a child and that took them into adulthood where they followed mythology, legends, folk and fairy tales to their “why.” AS St. Nicholas and Santa Claus played a role in their lives (St. Nicholas was from their Ukraine heritage  and Santa from their American side) they […]

It’s magic, you know, never believe it’s not so!

Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens

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Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens was recommended to me by a YA librarian friend. ( I read this as a passport book – recommended by a friend.) The story is told in alternating chapters by two magician’s apprentices: Rook and Sun. Rook, who was raised by his magician grandmother, is deemed unmagical. After her death, he is sentenced by the Magical Consortium to move away from his home and live in the city without magic. He is a genius (he keeps telling us that) […]

“The world was filling with ghosts. We were a haunted country in a haunted world.”

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

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This is a book I wouldn’t have picked up if not for one of my book clubs, and this is exactly why book clubs and stuff that makes you read outside your comfort zone are so fun. This book was so good! A real treat for book-lovers, and for humans who lived through (are living through?) the COVID-19 pandemic. I didn’t get excited about this one until somebody told me it was about a woman who is haunted by her least favorite bookshop customer, who […]

A Challenge to the Hero-Villain Dichotomy

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

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Hench is set in a world with a lot of heroes and a lot of villains, and children are tested at puberty to see if they have any powers so that they can be trained to be – ideally – heroes. Anna, the first person narrator of Hench, has been freelancing as a hench for villains for about a year. She’s not particularly invested in the work, but it’s a way to pay the bills because the capitalist dystopia we currently live in is still […]



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