Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

White Bones (Katie Maguire #1) by Graham Masterton

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Have you ever seen these pictures of a professional illustrator who let her four year old finish her drawings? That’s exactly what this book is like: it starts off well, a little weird but well done, and then in the second half of the book it’s amateur hour. On steroids.  On a remote Irish farm, eleven bodies are discovered: their bones are haphazardly strewn about underneath a barn. Weirdly, each thigh bone has a hole in it with a small doll on a wire looped […]

Mortality of Death

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V

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After (and during) reading The Many Deaths of Laila Starr I thought, “I do not know what I am reading/read.”  This is a jumbled-up messy, chaotic graphic novel story that was fracking amazing. It dives into the concept of death, life and the things that move both. There is love, hate and something in between. There is an understanding of the fragility and strength humans possessed. Ram V. is an odd writer but knows what they are saying. I think. Maybe they are just crazier […]

Night of the Living Hello Kitty Princess Demon-Deity

Escape From Yokai Land by Charles Stross

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I’ve had Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series in my TBR for a while; got the first one on Kindle sale a while back; it was pretty good. Grabbed 3 more from the library, although not quite in sequence. It turns out that you can read this series out of order and it will still mostly make sense. There may be references to someone dies or got married or is in another job or a certain probably evil who knows what is back, but how that […]

Like a fantastical, queer Sherlock Holmes.

The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by K. J. Charles

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 9/30 In my defense, K.J. Charles has a long backlist, but I wish I would have read this particular one sooner. I feel like I say that with her all the time, but with how much I love Sherlock Holmes and mysteries and spooky shit, this one definitely should have been at the top of my TBR. I’m making my way through her entire backlist this year, because her next book isn’t coming until early 2023, so […]

“But a novel always ends, the lies come to the surface, and the deaths are explained. Maybe one of the bad characters gets away with something—that’s fashionable right now—but you are still left with a sense that things are balanced, that dark things come to light, and that the bad person will, at least, most likely be miserable.”

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

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This book lit my brain up like a Christmas tree. Nobody knows why certain books hit certain people like they do. That’s part of the magic of art, and of reading. But it worked for me in individual pieces, and it worked as a whole. During parts of it, I could practically hear my synapses yelling far off in the distance a gleeful “wheeeee”. So, here are all the individual components that got me: *The main character, Shea, reads mystery and crime fiction, and reads […]

The Book of Cold Cases

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

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I think the only book of Simone St. James I have really enjoyed has been The Sun Down Motel, and even that fell apart for me towards the end. I think the supernatural aspects of this book just actually didn’t work in this one one. The main character, Shea, was too self righteous for me and I got really tired of her by the end of the book. “The Book of Cold Cases” follows receptionist, Shea Collins. Shea is just going through the motions of […]



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