Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

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I’m not sure if I can categorize this book as dark academia, but the characters and the story remind me so much of what I enjoyed about “If We Were Villains” and “The Secret History,” it is impossible for me not to draw parallels between them. All three stories are linked by a sudden and violent death, and how those left behind cope with their secrets. Paul is a seventeen-year-old who has recently graduated from high school. He lives with his mother and his two […]

“Hannah, you are the only thing in a room that makes it possible to breathe.”

For Never & Always by Helena Greer

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When she was little, Hannah Rosenstein’s parents traveled all over the world, and the only place she ever felt safe and settled was at the Christmas tree farm owned by her father’s great-aunt Cass. At Carrigan’s Christmas Tree Farm, she would also get to spend time with Levi, whose parents were the cook and groundskeeper at Carrigan’s and who in practicality ran the farm for Cass. When Hannah got older, she persuaded her parents to let her go live at Carrigan’s so she could go […]

Part romance, part memoir

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

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Official book description: When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She’s going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better. That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding […]

“With him, I am forever a night-blooming flower, attracted and repelled by the heat of the sun.”

The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

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Wren thought she was a normal human girl until the night when scary monsters out of a nightmare came and claimed she was in fact their daughter and had to come back to Faerie with them. Lord Jarel and Lady Nore of the Court of Teeth rip away her human glamour and make sure that Wren sees her human parents reject her faerie self (bluish skin, blue hair, mouth full of razor-sharp teeth) with horror and disgust. The cruel faeries, accompanied by the fearsome Stormhag […]

This was just as delightful as Emmalita/Rochelle promised

Season of Love by Helena Greer

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Ten years ago, Miriam Blum cut all ties with her entire family, including her eccentric great-aunt. Now she turns antique junk into creative and incisive art and has a loyal following on Instagram. She has a beautiful and wealthy fiancée and while they’re never going to share a passionate romance, they love each others as friends and support one another. Miriam is working towards finally opening her own art studio in Charleston when she is informed that her great-aunt Cass died (no one had even […]

will continue to read McFarlane but this wasn’t my favorite

Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane

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CW: emotional abuse As always, McFarlane writes books that seem like they’ll be lighthearted romances. They even have the quintessential Eric-Carle-block-print-esque covers and bright primary colors that denote Romance Genre books vs romance novels (a super reductive frankly sexist delineation that I think was promulgated to help people feel “better” that what they’re reading isn’t “just” romance). But like all McFarlane books, the romance is almost secondary to a larger emotional conflict that’s been weighing on our main characters. Some thought and recollections later, though, I’m not […]



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