Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Beneath the modern political rhetoric and academic theories of history, I had an ancient hope that was indistinguishable from Spiritualism. If my edit took, maybe the good I’d done would outweigh the evil.”

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

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I started this book first thing on New Year’s Day, made it about thirty pages in, and then didn’t pick it up again until Sunday morning on the 5th. I don’t know if it was feeling too heavy or what, but I needed to be in the right headspace for it. (It was probably the men’s right’s activists that did it, followed closely by a disturbing murder.) Then I basically binge-read the whole book yesterday morning. To sum the book up badly (and I will […]

The New Era of Speculative Fiction

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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I’ve sworn off reading trilogies/series for the past few years since I tend to either get totally obsessed or very bored. But after reading Jemisin’s short fiction collection last year, I knew I needed to read her novels. The Fifth Season did not disappoint, and I can’t wait to read the rest of The Broken Earth trilogy. The Fifth Season revolves around a world built on active volcanoes, which means there are often ‘seasons’ of cataclysmic disasters. These ‘seasons’ are documented and passed down to the surviving […]

That rare beast, a great final book.

The Toll (Arc of a Scythe, #3) by Neal Shusterman

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That was a really good ending. I am incredibly satisfied by it. It did what my favorite endings do, which is to manage to surprise me with things that feel inevitable. I am going to hold off on the five stars, after sleeping on it. I’m not quite sure why, though. Maybe when I do an eventual re-read (I most definitely need to, to see the whole arc), I’ll up it to five stars, which I will confess was my first instinct. I don’t really […]

This one has that Stephen King magic.

The Institute by Stephen King

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As readers, I think one thing we all have in common is that every time we pick up a book, we’re hoping it’ll be one of those times where what you’re reading is so absorbing that you forget entirely that you’re reading, your conscious self recedes into the background, and the story just takes over. Those are always the most magical reading experiences for me, at least, and this book, which calls to mind the beginnings of King’s writing career, absolutely did that for me. […]

A book I did not expect to hate.

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

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I think I mostly hated this? Yeah. I did. And I don’t really know why. I liked but didn’t love The Shining Girls when I read it a couple of years ago. I assumed I would similarly like not love this. And it does sound creepy and intriguing. A boy turns up dead in Detroit, his top half attached to the dead body of a deer. There are multiple narrators, including a detective on the case, a teenager, a journalist, and a homeless man. But […]

Not at all what I was expecting. #CBRBingo – Birthday

Firestarter by Stephen King

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I’ve read a fair amount of Stephen King by this point, and this is one of the better ones. Aside from some dated language and ideas (fatphobia, gender essentialism, homophobic/racist language used mostly by bad guys), I liked this one almost as much as I like Misery. Good villains, simple but effective story. Just a really well done horror/suspense novel. The 1980s just ooze from every page. I actually wasn’t anticipating the intensity of this novel. It opens in the middle of things, and our […]



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