Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

just the coolest casual story of how I got this book

Twelve Percent Dread by Emily McGovern

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I actually met Emily McGovern in person! I was checking out what events were going on in the area near my office one evening, and I saw that there was a book signing about a 10-15 minute walk away, and I went on a whim! This is why I moved to London, to be clear, this sort of serendipitous ability to do cool things. She drew a tiger in my book as that is my favorite animal (or maybe elephants are?) and I couldn’t think […]

“The world changed faster than I could”

Don't Cry For Me by Daniel Black

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BINGO – Minds (the narrator reflects at the end of his life in the various ways that he has changed his mind on certain truths he once believed) Jacob is dying. He knows that his time is almost up, but he has some things to resolve, namely with his son Isaac. In a series of letters to his son Isaac, Jacob tries to go back to the very beginning of his life and explain where he comes from, where their family has roots, how his […]

an author unafraid to let the chips fall where they must

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

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CWs, copied from the author: all the misogyny, all the homophobia, and a car accident death (offscreen, but discussed often) and also abortion/a miscarriage. I respect Dahlia Adler because while many authors have a tendency to write their romantic leads into a difficult situation (looking at you, innumerable romance novelists and also Linda Holmes), Adler has the guts to keep them there and not give them the “easy out.” In this case, the “star” quarterback of a middling-to-bad Texas football team dies in a car […]

thrillers are bit of a hit or miss for me, this was sort of…neither?

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

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This is not a case of false advertising–I went into this book fully amped up to read about a female serial killer who makes a career out of offing terrible men whose crimes fall outside the purview of the judicial system. Zero issues there, honestly! But what I couldn’t get into was the tone of the whole thing. It seemed to veer at times: between showing what scary competence can look like, to having Scarlett make some uncharacteristic mistakes, to a historical plot that’s meant […]

“It’s time for the world to let queer black boys unpack their shit.”

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

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When we had our book club vote for September, I was secretly hoping that All Boys Aren’t Blue would be one of the ones we chose. I was flabbergasted that in November of last year the memoir had a criminal report filed with the Flagler County Sheriff’s office by a member of the Flagler County School Board arguing that the book’s inclusion in three district school libraries violated state obscenity laws because it contained sexually graphic material. It has also been removed from school libraries […]

Hold On Tight and Don’t Look Back

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California by Gerard Way, Shaun Simon, Becky Cloonan

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To put it as clearly as possible… There is something wrong with you and we are going to fix it. I’ve been having kind of a Danger Days summer. This following my Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge spring and my Black Parade winter. What can I say, when I discover a band I am sometimes prone to musically hyperfixate. So the thing about this review is that it is taking quite a lot of self restraint to keep it as a review of the book […]



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