Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Sexuality is complicated. It’s not static. People change and sexuality can change too.”

Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail (Bright Falls, #2) by Ashley Herring Blake

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Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. This was a teeny bit of a disappointment for me after having loved Delilah Green Doesn’t Care so much, but it was still good! Just not a favorite. We’re following Delilah’s Type-A sister, Astrid, and another character named Jordan as they fall in lurve. Astrid has been hired as the designer for the renovation of the Everwood Inn, a locally famous inn that is supposedly haunted. They are televising the renovation […]

Yes, the title means they are stoned.

High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson

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Thanks to NetGalley and Recorded Books for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. This is genuinely one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read. It has a lot of flaws baked in. The worldbuilding is there but never explained, there is so much going on that none of it really fully works: lesbian stoner buddy comedy, political satire, the alternate history and fantasy elements, a romance . . . I spent a large portion of the book very confused. And yet, […]

I wish this wasn’t a thriller.

Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a Dan Brown-style thriller. Probably since the last Dan Brown book I read (so, 2011? Maybe?). But this is definitely one: Extremely short chapters (most are less than four pages, often they are only one or two); plain, workmanlike prose that cares more about getting the plot up and out there than anything else; shallow characterization; the presence of huge conspiracies involving powerful people. Anyway, that type. Except, Dan Brown does it much better, I’m sad to […]

“It is a profound belief of mine that if you can induce a person to talk to you for long enough, on any subject whatever, sooner or later they will give themselves away.”

After the Funeral (Hercule Poirot, #26) by Agatha Christie

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I had a really good time with this one, and the mystery in this one was actually one of the most intriguing of hers to me, even though it isn’t one of her most popular. I’m not sure why it’s one of her more lowly-rated ones. Maybe because Poirot pulls a Marple and is barely in it? The plot in this one kicks off as family patriarch Richard Abernethie’s funeral. He was ill for a long time, but had been predicted to live at least […]

What an absolute waste of a great book cover.

Death on Gokumon Island (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, #4) by Seishi Yokomizo

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I think I might be done with this series. It’s really lost its charm. I might give it one more go if they translate a fifth book, but it will be by hard copy not by audio. You expect a certain amount of clashing cultural mores when you read a book that was written over fifty years before, but when I read Agatha Christie, for instance, it’s usually just small stuff you can roll your eyes at and be like, ugh you dumb people in […]

This YA horror was more disturbing to me than some adult horror books I’ve read.

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

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It’s nearly always a good thing when one of your only complaints about a book is “I wanted more”. I say nearly, because I have read some stinkers where the main thing wrong was that the author didn’t actually do the work of fleshing out the world and the characters. Here, that’s not the problem. It’s pretty clear from reading this that the author did his work. It’s a concise YA horror story about a young man who can see ghosts (among other abilities), and […]



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