Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Nobody grabs SecUnits. I hadn’t realized this was a perk until now.”

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells

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When I read this book in January of 2019 it was my least favorite of the original four (spoiler, it still is), mostly because I didn’t connect with the non-Murderbot characters. To a degree that is still true, I feel less connected to them than I did to Mensah’s team in the first or the programmers in the second. But, on a second visit I think that’s probably by design, as Wells is clearly juxtaposing Don Amene and Miki against those other relationships. There is […]

‘Futuretellers Ken th’ Danger of Dreams Best’

Ashling by Isobelle Carmody

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In my previous reviews for the Obernewtyn Chronicles, I made the twin observations that Obernewtyn is a very contained story and it’s The Farseekers where the series starts to find its feet. Now I can state that it’s in the third volume, Ashling, where the plot starts to learn to run. Ashling takes place about a year after the events of The Farseekers, and we open with Elspeth rescuing a gypsy woman from being burnt at the state by the Herder Faction. While the woman is […]

That’s a bingo!

The Ex-Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon

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4.5 stars Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Pets (Steve Rogers Goldstein plays a fairly major role in the book) CBR16 Bingo: Dreams (Shay has dreamed about having her own show on public radio for over a decade) Shay Goldstein grew up loving radio. She and her now deceased father would listen to radio together and even have their own pretend radio shows, so she is very grateful for her job as a producer at a Seattle public radio station, and is very happy with what she […]

The Opposite of Euphoria

Negative Space by B.R. Yeager

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Read as part of CBR 16 Bingo: dreams. One of the main characters consistently has dreams that impact the plot of the story. CN: This book has many references to suicide, sometimes graphically. I won’t go into detail here but it’s impossible to review without mentioning it. If that’s something that makes you uncomfortable, sit this one out. Like many a child of the 80s and 90s, I’m a product of DARE’s Just Say No Culture. I never did drugs, was terrified of them as […]

Come for the story, leave appreciating some lovely art

Is This a House for Hermit Crab? by Megan McDonald

A Happy Place by Britta Teckentrup

Imperfectly Perfect: A Story That Cherishes Beauty in Imperfection by Perry Emerson

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There was an email in my work email inbox that first was thanking the booksellers who had nominated several titles from the publisher for the Indie Next newsletter. They then asked us to consider some other titles for the next one (as the deadline was in a few weeks). This made me browse the titles they were promoting and found one that worked for my particular mood at the time.    The one that caught my eye was the picture book, Is This a House for Hermit Crab? by Megan McDonald and illustrated by […]

Now I want to be a pterodactyl!

You Can’t Be a Pterodactyl! by James Breakwell

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I am all for not stepping on a child’s dream, but sometimes, well they are not the most, shall we say, realistic? Sure, you can think of difficult things (did anyone think we would have a biracial president or a woman and one of color as vice president in our lifetimes?) But trying to become an extinct flying reptile? Yeah, that’s a little impossible. But lo and behold in James Breakwell’s book You Can’t Be a Pterodactyl! the character of Tommy and his dad, find […]



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