Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Cozy Story that Won’t Stress You Out

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

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I must have felt like I needed a book hug, since I chose this one, which was described as a cozy read. I’ve heard of cozy mysteries and have been curious about the quaint worlds they inhabit. To be clear this is not a cozy mystery, it’s a cozy story – a gateway drug of sorts into cozy mysteries. This is a story about Mika, a witch who lives in England. Mike meets with other witches, in a sort of bi-monthly support group, but members […]

A great debut novel

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo

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This is one of those books about what could very well be about normal life. But it’s told in such an engaging and intriguing way. Adebayo is able to take the things that we all deal with – longing, loss, infidelity, belief – and show us how extraordinary we all really are. In a lot of ways, Stay With Me is a mirror reflecting our own desires, shortcomings, and struggles. We learn this by experiencing the lives of Yejide and Akin, who live in Nigeria […]

An unexamined past might come back to bite you on the ass. Literally

Lone Women: A Novel by Victor LaValle

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This short novel is a fascinating combination of history and horror, where history often is the horror. Lone Women is set in a remote homesteading community in Montana in 1915. This sparsely settled country promises adventure, new beginnings, and opportunity for anyone who is willing to take on the hard work of making a life there. Even single women and minorities can have a go. But while this is supposed to be a land of opportunity where neighbors help one another out of necessity if […]

What Happens When the Past is Forgotten

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro My rating: 4 of 5 stars I chose this for the CBR15 Passport Challenge in the “Travel Your Bookshelf” category. The first time I read Buried Giant, it was going to be a 3 star rating the ending saved it for me. That moment on the shore with Axl and Beatrice gets me in the feels. It’s such sharp, intense writing that leaves a strong impression on a reader. That deserves recognition. Originally, I thought the plot didn’t have much […]

Mothers, sisters, and daughters

The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls: A Novel by Anissa Gray

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TW: Grief, abusive relationships, eating disorders The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls is an outstanding novel that deals with very difficult, triggering topics: parental loss/grief, abusive relationships and eating disorders. The narration is shared by the three adult Cochran sisters over the period of about a month. During that time, the reader witnesses a family spiraling downward but fighting to stay together in the face of powerfully destructive forces.  The novel opens with Althea, the eldest Cochran sister, in jail for committing fraud. […]

That’s a lotta corpses, bro

A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames

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I liked the other Jonathan Ames books I’ve read, and learned ten seconds ago that he’s the creator of Bored to Death, which, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a show on HBO Max (which I haven’t seen, but which multiple people have told me I’d like). Anyway. A guy named Happy Doll – for real, his parents named him that…seriously? a little much right off the bat – is an ex-cop who’s now a fairly unsuccessful, i.e., not busy,  private detective. A friend comes […]



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