Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Let’s talk, you and I. Let’s talk about fear.”

Night Shift by Stephen King

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Took me long enough to get through this one. But my brain was not in a great place when I started, and I had to wait to read a bunch of freaky-deaky stories until my brain felt better. Which it did over the weekend, and I zoomed through this. Stephen King’s imagination is a wild place, especially Stephen King of fifty years ago (some of these stories were published in the 60’s, even though the book was published in 1978). Some of the stories didn’t […]

This is the most fun I’ve had reading a scary book, like ever!

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

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I selected this book to read because it sounded weird and scary and interesting.  I had no idea funny was on the menu too!  It did not disappoint. Kara kinda starts out as a sad sack that you root for.  She just got divorced, and rather than moving back in with her BANANAS and pain in the butt mother, she moves into her uncle’s spare room.  It’s a spare room in his museum of oddities – Uncle Earl’s Museum of Wonders.  The first (nearly) half of […]

Murder, Mayhem and Meatballs

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

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On a dark night, three people come together to discover who has been vandalising their store: reluctant but cash-strapped Amy, pleasant but lonely Ruth Anne and manager Basil, whose corporate hard-on is probably the most terrifying thing in this book. The store they work at is Orsk, a wannabe Ikea chain of cheap DIY furniture stores (Ikea is acknowledged as the superior brand here but really, for all intents and purposes, Orsk IS Ikea). It doesn’t take long for things to go awry: a mysterious […]

Chitinous Critters and Cardboard Cutouts

Phantoms by Dean Koontz

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One late afternoon, sisters Jenny and Lisa Paige drive up to Snowfield, CA, a small ski resort village where Jenny works as a doctor. Lisa, her fourteen year old half sister, comes to live with her after the death of their mother. Though Jenny is used to the town being quiet, when she drives through it she notices that the lights are on but nobody’s home (which is, in and of itself, an accurate description of any character in this novel, but I digress). As […]

February Leftovers 2022

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Sleeping With Strangers by Eric Jerome Dickey

The Trees by Percival Everett

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Democracy by Carol Anderson

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These are my February leftovers, i.e. books that I read but didn’t give a full review either cuz I didn’t have time or didn’t have much to say. There are fewer than normal this month because Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois took up most of my time. Trouble Is What I Do **** Another good entry in the Leonid McGill series. It’s short and that streamlines the story more than its predecessors. I still read these as if Leonid is dead and NYC is his purgatory where […]

“Kids are mirrors, reflecting back everything that happens to them. You’ve got to make sure they’re surrounded by good things.”

Sundial by Catriona Ward

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Much as the cover suggests, this book is creepy and twisty as heck. It’s an exploration of nature versus nature and the fears parents have about passing their trauma on to the next generation. “I have the familiar growing sense that always fills me at Sundial: that this is the only real place on earth, and the rest of the world is a kind of dream.” From the outside, Rob’s life seems idyllic. She’s a teacher and the mother of two girls, 9-year-old Annie and […]



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