Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

What lurks in the corn

The Girl in the Corn by Jason Offutt

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I’m starting my review of The Girl in the Corn, with the that there are big time TRIGGERS in this book. After all, it’s a horror book and therefore there are several horror images. Perhaps they could be more so, but even what they do show (such as the murder of a child, the brutal murder of the dog and several other people, plus drug use/abuse, guns, kidnapping, sex, and what I consider rape) is not pleasant to say the least, and, of course could […]

Couple of City Slickers in a John Wayne town

This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian

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Are you from CA and moved to The Middle of No Place? (Or from The City to The Country?) Did you try to live “off grid?” Did you mistake a coyote for a wolf? Do you think 2016 had the wrong person elected? If so, read this book, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian. However,  if you think the right person was elected in 2016, keep walking. If you are looking for an interesting, but slightly self-centered, memoir, this […]

Mom and Me…

I Wish I Could Say "Thank You" by Yukari Takinami

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After reading GentleRain’s review of I Wish I Could Say “Thank You” by Yukari Takinami, I researched and found that while my bookstore could order me a copy, I decided that I would go the interlibrary loan route. I figured I could purchase a copy if I enjoyed it at a later time. And I probably will do that, but instead of keeping it for myself, I will donate it to my local library. I think others might be interested in this not easy to […]

Coming to America

Frankie D, Vegan Vampire by Sally Dutra and Brian Dutra

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Frankie D, Vegan Vampire by Sally Dutra and Brian Dutra, with illustrations by Tiffani Brown is set up as if The Addams Family were from today, a lot more modern (though their understanding of things still not the same as “normies”), plus were actual vampires. This is a fun and sweet book. The silly and clever retelling of a fitting in theme has been done before, but the humor this time around makes it fresh. The characters are maybe a bit of caricatures (there is […]

Nobody asked Cinderella if she felt lucky

The Lucky Poor by Mazie Lovie

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The Lucky Poor by Mazie Lovie was read via an online reader copy, even though it has been out since mid-March. It is an introduction to several years of the author’s life with moving a few times, living with her grandparents and finally in a house made especially for them, as we see what it really means to be part of the oxymoron term, “the lucky poor.” We watch as Lovie goes from a five-year-old kid to a young woman going off to college. We […]

The Intersection of Love and the Law

You'll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love by Marcia A. Zug

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In this short history of the legalities of marriage in the United States, Zug takes us through how marriage as an institution has shifted over the centuries and how the many reasons for marrying for something other than love, such money, status, or legal benefits, played its part in that. Coming from a culture where marriage is considered an essential step of adulthood and is still sometimes arranged by one’s parents, I never really thought much about it, or why the legal institution of marriage […]



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