Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Are you feeling lucky?

Lucky Suit by Lauren Blakely

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Lucky Suit is a popcorn romance novella, so it’s light and cute and enjoyable.   Kristen is a scientist who researches renewable energy (I think) and is intellectual and likes stars and math and poker.  She has one of those awesome grandmas who wears skinny jeans in her seventies and fixes up old cars. And Grandma is trying to set up someone with Kristen, which has not turned out all that well so far.  So Kristen turns to online dating, which Grandma is not about. […]

“We study natural stupidity instead of artificial intelligence” (a Bromance)

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

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Behavioral economics is such a popular topic nowadays that noted economist and student of human behavior Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in the field in 2017. I first became interested in the topic that same year when I was asked to give a presentation at work, and I started by reading Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational (read my review here!). Back in the 1970s, though, the suggestion that people, as a general rule, behave irrationally in all sorts […]

Be careful what you wish for

The Wicked King by Holly Black

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Spoiler warning! You really don’t want to start this book without having read the first book in the series, The Cruel Prince. It’s also pretty much impossible for me to review this book without spoiling parts of the first book, so if you’re not caught up, skip this review until you are. Seriously, even the book summary from Goodreads is pretty revealing. Look away now or suffer the consequences. You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring. The first lesson is to […]

Feelings are Good (and other Truths)

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

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I think this self-help book was originally mentioned in the comments to a Captain Awkward post, but of course I can’t find it now so who actually knows? Emily and Amelia Nagoski are here to tell you that feelings are good, we need to complete the stress cycle, and that “wellness” isn’t another should to beat yourself up over. Over which to beat yourself up? Anyway…it’s above average, I’d say, and in large part because their target audience is very specific.

“It was as if Boeing built one plane and, without doing a single flight test, told airline passengers, ‘Hop aboard.’”

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

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The following paragraphs are my meager attempt at Melrose Place fan fiction in order to demonstrate my feelings right now upon finishing this book. Please bear with me. Imagine it’s a Monday night in the late 1990s and you’re sitting on your couch watching TV, when Melrose Place comes on. Would you think it was crazy if something like this happened: Dr. Kimberly Shaw gets an idea to invent a medical device that could CHANGE THE WORLD. She tells everyone around her that her invention […]

Being brave isn’t the same as being okay.

Queenie by Candice Carty-WIlliams

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I hadn’t heard of Queenie, until I read vel veeter’s recent review, and made an immediate mental note to check it out. I’m glad I did. From Amazon: Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several […]



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