Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

So much fun it helped with my reading slump!

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

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Fellow Cannonballer, Teresaelectro, first brought Heroine Complex to my attention.  Then it was a featured book title for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month at Mysterious Galaxy.  I was about to go and to pick up May’s book order, when on a whim I called and asked if Heroine Complex was in stock.  It was and I purchased it over the phone, to bring home with the books that were waiting at the store. Due to events this year, I have found reading to be […]

“The world feels safer somehow if we share our pain. It becomes more manageable. And by sharing our pain, we inspire others to share theirs. We are so much less alone if learn to wear our imperfections proudly, like tarnished jewelry that still shines just as brightly.”

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson

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Reading about loss, grief, and love in Harrow: The Ninth  while grieving the loss of my dog was perhaps not the best choice.  After reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for Cannonball Book Club, it seemed best to keep the comedy going and The Bloggess’s Broken (in the best possible way) was sitting on the shelf waiting.  I  thought I knew what I would be getting in a Jenny Lawson book.  Raw openness about her mental and physical health, along with side splittingly funny stories.  […]

Douglas Adams was brilliant and gone too soon

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

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I don’t remember the first time I read, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (HGttG), I suspect sometime in middle school.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it since.  HGttG is probably responsible for much of my sense of humor.  When Adams suddenly passed away in 2001, I felt a profound sense of loss, he was brilliant, ahead of his time, and his writings (fiction and non) were so very funny.  Every so often it will pop into my head, “What would Adams think […]

“What a fool. What a destructive, romantic, ridiculous act. It was always a certain kind of ass who approached love like that”.

Harrow the Ninth: The Locked Tomb trilogy vol. 2 by Tamsyn Muir

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Spoiler free review of Harrow the Ninth. I started Harrow at the wrong time.  When I began in mid-February, I didn’t know my dog was about to have an emergency that would lead to his passing within a month.  I couldn’t focus and the book deserved more attention.  I put it down for a long time and read comfort fluff.  When I picked Harrow back up again I would read it off and on.  One night I was determined to finish it, stayed up way too […]

It’s kind of like if Harry Potter was destined to destroy the world, crossed with the Hunger Games, and Hogwarts was actively trying to kill you

Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

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Naomi Novik burst on the scene with her Temeraire series but around book 4 or 5 I lost interest.  Then last year I finally read Spinning Silver and was reminded what a good author she is and was excited to find out that a new book was forth coming in the Fall, Deadly Education.  Attending one of her virtual release events whetted my appetite and I have been eagerly waiting for Deadly Education to rise to the top of the TBR, I’m happy to report it lived […]

Sloppy editing, battle that just kept going, and an egregious character death: Peace Talks part B

Battle Ground by Jim Butcher

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Jim Butcher said it was a publishing decision to break apart Peace Talks and Battle Ground into two books due to length and the sharp turn between the two halves of the story.  However, I’m not certain this was justified or needed.  Last year I read two books that were longer than the combined length of Peace Talks and Battle Ground.  And I suspect had the two been published together that the overall book would have been smaller, had the story not needed to be padded out to fill two […]



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