Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Jake Ballard (not that one) is a terrible boyfriend

Rock the Boat by Rachael Herron

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I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is the third and final installment of Rachael Herron’s Ballard Brothers books, where the three brothers build, repair, and sell houses while appearing on a Property Brothers meets The Bachelor-type reality show. The two older brothers have already appeared on the show and gotten together with their partners but the youngest, Jake, has been the feature of several seasons, never quite clicking with the homebuyer they’re working with that time until his ex agrees […]

“Two hearts girl get the job done”

The Impossible Girl by Lydia Kang

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  Mysteries that take place in old New York City are pretty much catnip for me. If you add in an interesting and capable female lead, I’m pretty much all in. Naturally, The Impossible Girl by Lydia Kang roped me right in with both. Set in Manhattan in 1850, the book features a healthy dose of weird history, a mystery I only partially figured out and a protagonist with skill and grit that the author shows and doesn’t tell. Before a change in legislation made […]

I did not expect this.

Blended by Sharon Draper

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Last week, my boss gave me this book and asked me if I would prepare a presentation on it for some workshops we have coming up. It looked cute: pink and white stripes on the cover and a girl spilling her ice cream. Sounded fine to me! And the book was indeed fine. Blended tells the story of Isabella, a sixth grader with divorced parents. She struggles to adapt to the back-and-forth custody arrangement that her parents have, and doesn’t feel like she can call […]

Should’ve quit while I was ahead

The Uncle Wiggly Book: The Rabbit Gentleman's Adventures by Howard R. Garis

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When I was a kid, we had a board game called the Uncle Wiggily game. It’s a basic “racing track” style game where players draw cards and follow the instructions to try to beat the other players to the end. It’s kind of like Candy Land but with anthropomorphic animals instead of gum drops. The board is illustrated with characters from the Uncle Wiggily story books, and the object is to be the first player to make it from Uncle Wiggily’s bungalow to Dr. Possum’s […]

A defiant girl in a man’s world

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

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4.5 stars Spoiler warning! This is book 2 in a trilogy, and the story pretty much follows on directly from the ending of the previous book. This book, while very good, doesn’t really stand on its own, you would do much better to start at the beginning, with The Bear and the Nightingale.  There are roving gangs of bandits travelling the countryside around Moscow, pillaging and burning the villages and abducting young girls. Prince Dimitri sends his cousin, brother Alexandr, affectionately known to his family as Sasha, […]

Trolls, Trolls, and More Trolls

In The Troll Wood by John Bauer

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  I have loved John Bauer since I lived in Sweden for six months when I was a kid. My parents give a collection of fairy tales illustrated by him. There is something about his trolls and his use of light and shadow. This picture presents Bauer’s artwork with short little narratives about trolls. There is what happens when a Friar tries to exile trolls from a forest. There is a princess who is captured by trolls but is able to save herself. There is […]



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