Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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Been putting off this review because this book is too smart for me. Or, actually, all the characters and maybe the author want to be smarter than me. I am pretty smart! I just have different priorities than everyone in this book. I don’t know about Donna Tartt, it could go either way with her. I still haven’t decided if she secretly empathizes with all these assholes she birthed from her mind, or if she’s skewering people and ideas and places instead. Either, way, this […]

An interesting failure.

True Crime Story by Joseph Knox

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Thanks to Netgalley and Recorded Books for the audio ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. This was an impulse request from Netgalley because I thought it was a true crime story, as one might expect from the title. It, my friends, is not. It is a fictional thriller/mystery written sort of in the style of a true crime book. I’ve never, ever seen an actual true crime book structured like this, though. It has more elements of an oral history or filmed documentary […]

“Suddenly revenge is so close he can actually taste it. It tastes like steak, rare.”

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

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I actually really enjoyed this retelling of The Tempest*, particularly since I had just re-read the play as a refresher, so it was a lot easier to catch all the references and parallels. This is actually only my third Margaret Atwood book, which feels weird, since she is everywhere, and also because I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale three times. About time I branched out! (I’m sorry, Malin, I still haven’t read The Blind Assassin, which is a book I know you love.) *Thanks to andtheIToldYouSos […]

Prospero is a dickhead.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

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I‘m tempted to just let the title be my review, but if I want to count this review towards my total, it has to be at least 250 words. I haven’t read this play in ten years. I’ve never seen it performed. It’s never been my favorite, even though I’ve read it several times now. The best parts of it involve several of Shakespeare’s most classic lines: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, […]

Here be spiders. (Cute ones! A little creepy sometimes, but cute. Do I like spiders now?)

Cackle by Rachel Harrison

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If you have been craving a feminist, witchy, creepy but somehow still cozy dark fantasy horror book, then here is a book for you! Our narrator is Annie, who just turned thirty, and fresh off a shitty break-up (her boyfriend of ten years decided he wasn’t into it anymore and just wanted to be friends, and then made her sleep on the futon) she decides to make a change, moving to the small upstate NY town of Rowan, which is cozy and beautiful and adorable. […]

A great man, a great book (??), but not a book for me.

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela

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Oh, this rating makes me feel bad. Three stars means ‘I liked it!’ I just don’t think autobiographies are for me. Nelson Mandela was a great man, and I’m glad I know more about him, but this was not super engaging for me, even in audiobook. The audiobook, by the way, is a good one. The narrator, Michael Boatman, is from South Africa, so he can do all the clicks and glottal stops that Mandela’s native tongue of Xhosa requires. His voice is soothing and […]



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