Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Gruesomely delightful

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

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This is an unusual take of the slasher genre that I found refreshing. Is that an appropriate word to use when talking about slashers? Probably not, but I’m not sure what would work better…it was gruesomely delightful. How’s that? I can’t say it’s the first of its kind – the story reminds me of Scream, or even, to a lesser extent, Cabin in the Woods, where there was a comical self-awareness of the genre embedded in the story. I was a Teenage Slasher is narrated […]

Dementia makes mysteries even more complicated

One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Crutchley

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This book follows what I find to be a common formula: an (arguably) unreliable narrator, and two different timelines: one in the 50s and the other in the 2010s. So we get bits and pieces of a mystery about a missing girl in alternating chapters. Our narrator is 82-year-old Edie (or 15 years old in the 1950’s time-line). As a child, Edie is an outcast. She’s poor and has an unusual home-life, as her mother performs seances. Edie meets Lucy, the mayor’s daughter, and they […]

This kid’s worse than a villain

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

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I’m a little embarrased to admit that I’d never read a Judy Blume book. I know Superfudge and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret were big hits when I was growing up. But I never picked them up, despite the fact I read a lot at that age. And now, I have a son in 4th grade. And he was reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. So I decided to read it too. And here’s my takeaway: Fudge is a terrible human being. […]

So much ejaculating in this book

The Hidden Hand or Capitola the Madcap by E.D.E.N. Southworth

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FLAMES AND FURIES! Get ready for hundreds of pages of exclamations, ejaculations, and interjections! But really, there is a lot of ejaculating in this book. The Hidden Hand was originally published in the 1850s in serialized form, but later published as a book in 1888. This is an overly dramatic, noir-styled, mustachioed twirling romp in which the characters only seem to speak in all caps and exclamation points. And to give you a feel of the writing, I will be ejaculating several times throughout this […]

Like karaoke for books

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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Did you know Panem was pronounced “PAN-EM?” I sure didn’t. You emphasize both syllables apparently. That’s a benefit of listening to the audio book. But you know what might not be a benefit of an audiobook? Hearing a man trying to do female voices. Now, I’ll admit that I listen to audio books at a fast pace, which obviously affects the vibe. But I couldn’t help think that the females in this book sounded like female South Park characters. And it gets worse when some […]

I don’t recommend reading a sequel before reading the first one

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

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This book made me kinda mad. But it’s partially my fault. Apparently it’s a sequel and I’m not sure how I didn’t know that going in. For those who live under a rock, like me, Jennifer Egan wrote A Visit From the Goon Squad. Did you know there’s a sequel to that? Yeah yeah. I’m not convinced you need to read one to get the other though. Based on Egan’s style of writing, which is to say, eclectic. There are a multitude of characters with […]



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