Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

You don’t want to be treated like family by THIS family

Cry Out Loud by Tara O’Connor

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Tara O’Connor has four authored and illustrated titles to her name, plus several others she is the illustrator of. Cry Out Loud is one of those titles she is the complete creator. I have read three of her works (the fourth is being searched for…). Each one is a little different from the others, yet they all have a similar tone. However, one of the interesting things is that I would say each book is for a different audience. Their memoir Roots, is for the […]

I inadvertently overheard some things while my ear was casually pressed to this steel door.

The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games #2) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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“No,” Max corrected. “You and I are friends. Grayson is the physical manifestation of your avoidant attachment style. He won’t let himself want you. You don’t want to want to be wanted. Everybody stays at arm’s length. Nobody gets hurt, and nobody gets any.” ― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Hawthorne Legacy CBR17 Bingo: Play At the end of The Inheritance Games, one mystery was solved…sort of. Why the game was created was answered, but as to why Avery was named the heir remains unknown. The […]

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

The Crow Road by Iain Banks

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The Crow Road is about about Prentice McHoan’s preoccupation with death, sex, his relationship with his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, a missing uncle, cars, alcohol and other intoxicants, and God, against the background of the Scottish landscape. And doesn’t that just sound like so much fun? Or maybe just a Scottish take off on Nine’s “Folies Bergeres” Necrophorus: The trouble with Contini, he’s the king of mediocrities, A second-rate director who believes that he is Socrates. He never makes a “movie” or a “picture?” […]

Maisie Dobbs and the Case of the Dubious Highlighter

Pardonable Lies: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqqueline Winspear

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cbr17bingo Family Back in the day, I read quite a few Maisie Dobbs books, and thoroughly enjoyed them.  The first I read was Birds of a Feather, bought purely because of its wonderfully evocative cover art, and then went back to read the first of the series, and any others I could find in book stores.  She went off my radar for awhile, but she is definitely back on again now. The period is post WWI Britain up until the 1930s.  Maisie signed up as […]

Multigenerational missing girls and ripple effects

Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan

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Salt Bones fulfills the “family” square on CBR17 Bingo. Actual rating: 4.5 stars Salt Bones is a story of myth, which missing girls matter, and cycles of generational pain. I was really excited to read this based on the premise of Persephone and Demeter story through a Mexicali perspective, and this was great. There are so many different mother-daughter dynamics explored, and all of them dealing with different kinds of trauma. The Veracruz family seems to be cursed because twenty years ago Mal’s younger sister, […]

I kept imagining Father Brown’s bicycle just around the corner.

Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess

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In January I shelved this as a to-read book, and I have no idea why I did that. Did I see it on a list of anticipated publications in 2025? Did I see someone else mark it as to read and read the blurb and decide it was for me? And why did I also put it on my library request list ahead of its publication? I have no idea. I feel like so many books show up in my life and I either know […]



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