Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

When Every Morning Starts with Chaos

The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins

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This novel has been on my radar for months because the concept is so unique: What would happen if buildings in New York City suddenly started moving around? Residents wake up one morning to find that has happened, and it continues to happen every morning afterward. They might wake up with a view of a skyscraper one day, a view of a river the next. How would you react if you never knew where your home or business might end up? That’s the question that […]

It is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it.

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

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I had heard so many good things about this book that I decided to put a hold on it at my library back at the beginning of Bingo 2022. Like the characters in the novel, this book must have been on a journey, because I never heard from my library, and after Bingo, I forgot about it. In February 2023, a voice mail saying my hold book was ready for pick up left me slightly perplexed. Upon retrieving it, I found A Psalm for the […]

Winter People – a unique take on reviving the dead

Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

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For the life of me, I really wish I could remember what site or person recommended the Winter People to me, because I want to thank them, as it was a refreshingly good read. Pet Sematary is one of my favorite Stephen King novels and this story plays with similar themes but places it in more of a historical and feminist context. The story takes place over 100 years and can switch times without warning, which I found a bit disorienting at first. You get […]

The End Justifies the Means

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

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Radicalized by Cory Doctorow is four short stories turned into a novel. I checked this out from the library. The cover grabbed me, it is black and white with four red and black images, a piece of toast with a no sign marked through it, a person in a heroic pose with a cape trailing behind them, a pill with a hand reaching up through it, and a red skull on a black background. I enjoyed “Unauthorized Bread” about digital rights management. The heroine is […]

“It’s Not My Place to Patrol Your Life:” Queer SF Romance Strikes Again

Curveball by Jeremy Sorese

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After how much I enjoyed The Short While, I figured I should get Jeremy Sorese’s first graphic novel, Curveball. This is also a science fiction queer romance set in a near-future type setting, but it felt less assured than The Short While and I found it a bit harder to follow. Curveball follows Avery and their friend/roommate Jacqueline, who live in a city where there is an energy crisis and a war happening. Avery is a waiter who is having a hard time at their job on […]

“It’s not unlike filtration, a move that blatant, deliberate. “

Sleep Donation by Karen Russell

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In the near-future, we lucky Americans are eyeball-deep in a new terror: we can’t sleep. Every day, thousands more become unable to reach REM. They die after days of restlessness. The only thing that can help? Donations of sleep from “healthy” dreamers. Not unlike a blood drive, people like Trish Edgewater are cold-calling sleepers, begging them to give some of their life to the lifeless. Etiquette is a powerful programming, however, and easily exploitable. I sneeze. He sneezes back language at me, reflexive generosity: “Bless […]



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