Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Big Pancake doesn’t want you to know this, but making pancakes is easier than you think.”

The Sad Bastard Cookbook: Food You Can Make So You Don’t Die by Zilla Novikov, Rachel A. Rosen, Marten Norr (Illustrator)

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When my brain is cooperating, I enjoy cooking. But as a neurodivergent person who lives by herself and absolutely has no idea what is presently in my refrigerator at any time (yes, even immediately after going to the grocery store) keeping myself fed has always been an interesting challenge that I attempt to hide from the world around me. I also tend to get stuck in eating the same thing over and over as many autistic folks do. Add to that the problem that meal […]

Siskel & Ebert Get the Biography Treatment

Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer

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The core of Opposable Thumbs is the relationship between Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert and how it turned into the entity “Siskel & Ebert” that still dominates the movie review and criticism landscape more than a decade after the death of its last surviving member. It is the nature of that professional relationship, born from a natural wellspring of competition, which turned into decades of increased media literacy. It began in earnest in 1975, when the two men met for lunch in a Chicago pub […]

“For most autistics existing in a world not built for them, anxiety is the baseline and constant background hum that their daily life has to play over.”

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

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Before this book I knew Fern Brady not at all. She’s made a name for herself between the UK comedy and television scenes, and while I enjoy a British panel show I’ve managed to miss Brady entirely. I decided to request this book from NetGalley based purely on the fact that this is a memoir of a woman who was diagnosed with autism as an adult and that’s a story I am very interested in. Like Brady, I too do a reasonably convincing impression of […]

“her wounds came from the same source as her power”

The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich

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Poetry is a genre that I have a terrible time reviewing but in my personal quest to keep reading the genre – and not give up on it – I find myself trying to about once a year. The Dream of a Common Language is the first one of 2023 for me (I have at least one other poetry collection on my TBR for the year) and while I’ve known about its existence since I read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild back in 2012, it took a […]

“Remember that a fine education can be found in places other than the usual.”

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

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I’m nearly a decade late to The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. It has been on my to read list since 2016 and got pushed to the top tier of the pile last year for the Read Harder challenge (as it does take place in a big way in a bookstore). Then I never got to it but seeing that there was a movie adaptation out I decided to get my proverbial act together and dig into the story.   The book tells […]

“The fifth glass is unarguably clean. Especially because Haf has been pretending to scrub at a stain that isn’t there, like a horny Lady Macbeth wanting to prolong the moment.”

Make You Mine This Christmas by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

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I love the fake dating trope, so I was pleased as punch that November’s Illumicrate Afterlight book was Make You Mine This Christmas, even more so when forced proximity and all the bisexual chaos enter the equation. The story focuses on Haf who has been having a terrible year and lets her roommate convince her to join them at crashing a Christmas party they may or may not have been invited to. It’s at that party that Haf meets Christopher and following feeling badly for […]



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