Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Ladies loving ladies and sucking blood in 1872.

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 11/30 This sure was something, I tell you what. Before I get to the actual review, I do want to say that I am specifically referring to the version edited by Carmen Maria Machado, with an introduction and footnotes by her. Both things fundamentally changed the experience of reading this. I am still boggled in the mind that this is a book about lesbian vampires and their young female victims being seduced, and it was written in […]

Like a fantastical, queer Sherlock Holmes.

The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K. J. Charles

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 9/30 In my defense, K.J. Charles has a long backlist, but I wish I would have read this particular one sooner. I feel like I say that with her all the time, but with how much I love Sherlock Holmes and mysteries and spooky shit, this one definitely should have been at the top of my TBR. I’m making my way through her entire backlist this year, because her next book isn’t coming until early 2023, so […]

DNA app as plot device.

You Have a Match by Emma Lord

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 6/30 Reading this right after Perfect on Paper was probably a mistake, because I couldn’t help comparing the two of them, to this book’s detriment. But I don’t think this would have been a full four-star book for me, anyway. Parts of it I really liked, even loved, but then too much would happen all at once, and things got messy, and then were wrapped up very neatly. It just wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been. […]

Yes, Darcy, you are queer!

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 5/30 I haven’t read a really solid, really good bordering on great contemporary YA novel in what feels like a really long time. Actually, I just scrolled back through my GR reading challenges, and the last really good/great YA contemporary I read was Concrete Rose back in January 2021. So it has been a while! Perfect on Paper isn’t life-changing or anything, it’s just a really well done YA novel, a classic of the form. It certainly […]

The Books of Greenwich Village

Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mob Boss Chin Gigante by Larry McShane

69 Barrow Street/Strange Embrace by Lawrence Block

The Pope of Greenwich Village by Vincent Patrick

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Unintentionally so, I read three consecutive books set in Greenwich Village (well, I guess technically three out of four as one of the books is a two-for-one and the second story isn’t set in the Village). I decided to cobble together one review of the stories since they shared this similarity… Chin *** When I’d first heard of Chin Gigante, I was more fascinated with the idea that the mob had a thriving operation in Greenwich Village, an area I’ve always associated with Bohemians and the […]

Three stars, for now. It’s not the book it’s me??

Moon Witch, Spider King (The Dark Star Trilogy, #2) by Marlon James

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This book has been holding up my review queue since I finished it in late March. I was surprised at my reaction to it when I read it, and wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, because I wasn’t sure if I liked the book or not. And, if I didn’t like it, why not? I feel like nothing much has changed in James’s style in the last three years. I think it’s me, and that I just wasn’t in the mood at all to […]



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