Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My first Lisa Jewell, and it will not be my last!

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

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This was really good! Part of me wanted to give it my first five star rating of 2022, but I’m holding out for true love on that one. This was very close, though. I think the only thing stopping me is that I was missing some of that elation that comes from being truly surprised by a book, because I did figure out several key elements/twists on my own before the book revealed them to me. What remains, though, is a very solid, extremely engaging […]

“At last we meet again for the first time, for the last time.”

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

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All I’ve got in my head right now is that line from Spaceballs (see title of this review). I say that because every year I read a handful of books that I am just absolutely at a loss for how to review. This is my first one of 2022! I just want to say la la la la la and maybe read it again, but I’m expected instead to verbalize my thoughts about a book that covered so much and was so good and so […]

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy, #3) by Deborah Harkness

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I can point out so many flaws but at the end of the day I read this 561 page book very fast and I did, I enjoyed myself. My rational brain is going, “Stop! She’s too powerful! This villain is made of cardboard! This is wish-fulfillment! He’s so possessive, and how convenient it’s coded into his genes!!! This is CHEESY AS HELL. They are CODEPENDENT.” Meanwhile, the part of my brain that just makes noises and wants to grab things that are soft is making […]

“It’s so much easier to obey orders. It’s not much fun to think.”

Spectred Isle (Green Men, #1) by K.J. Charles

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On the one hand, I wish I would have read this sooner, because it’s great. On the other, I wish I would have saved it, because the sequel seems to be postponed indefinitely for some ground-up retooling, and I would prefer to have it as soon as possible. I found the worldbuilding here to be one of the more intriguing urban fantasy set-ups I’ve read, especially when you factor in that a large part of it uses the consequences of WWI in such a thoughtful […]

“Miss Holmes smiled. She had dimples. Of course she did—the Good Lord went to ridiculous lengths to make sure that one of the finest minds in existence was housed in a body least likely to be suspected of it.”

A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock, #1) by Sherry Thomas

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Oh, this was so close to being my first five star read of the year. If I hadn’t been a little confused by the ending (lots of similar sounding names, and an intricate mystery denouement) it definitely would have been. This is the first book in Sherry Thomas’s Victorian historical mystery series, Lady Sherlock, where Sherlock is a lady. Her name is actually Charlotte, a disgraced young noble lady who is genius level intelligent, and is trying to find a way to make a living […]

“The caterpillars were ordered to appear in court on the twenty-eighth of June, at a specified hour, where they would be assigned legal representation.”

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

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I was so happy when Mary Roach announced this book, because I have been missing her writing. I never read her last book, even though I tried and couldn’t get more than ten minutes in before waving the white flag, because reading about warfare and war and its consequences is something that I found actively unpleasant. And this book sounded so silly! And it’s about animals. I fucking love animals! Even the ones most people dislike, like rats and spiders and snakes. I anticipated laughter […]



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