Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Let the Right One In

The Outsider by Stephen King

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A young boy is found violated and viciously murdered in a small town in the American heartland. Police inspector Ralph Anderson soon finds his prime suspect: baseball trainer Terry Maitland has been seen by multiple witnesses, his clothes covered in blood. His fingerprints are all over the place. Ralph, sure he has the right man, goes in to arrest Terry in front of the entire town. The only problem is that Terry seems to have an iron-clad alibi. So why was he in two places […]

It’s Writing By Numbers but at Least the Painting is Good

The Outsider by Alex Finlay

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Grayson ‘Gray’ Hernandez has just finished law school. He dreams of making a big splash as a hot-shot lawyer, but so far his career hasn’t really taken off yet. Forever the idealist – his immigrant parents run a pizza place in a bad neighbourhood, and Gray wants to help them – he takes up a job as a Supreme Court messenger. It doesn’t pay much but at least he gets to be around the most brilliant minds of the country. Then, one night, the Chief […]

“into every life a little poop must fall”

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

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There’s something about reading Stephen King that really fuels my creativity. And this was a good collection. The real star of these four novellas is the titular If It Bleeds, a direct sequel to The Outsider, but I think I might have actually liked it better than that book. We get some classic themes from Uncle Stevie here but he adds a modern spin to most of them that was interesting, even if some worked better than others for me. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone — 3.5 […]

The Big Short

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

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If It Bleeds is ostensibly a new collection of short stories by the master storyteller, Stephen King. But it didn’t read like a collection of short stories to me, as King deftly compacted the richness of a novel into each short tale. He confidently weaves whole worlds together between each page. The first story, Mr Harrigan’s Phone, tells a story of a small-town teenager who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a reclusive retired billionaire. Mr Harrigan introduces teenager Craig to the world of Hemingway, […]

“I am wonderful, I deserve to be wonderful, and I contain multitudes.”

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

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I haven’t been great about reading lately, and have been even worse about reviewing. But as a loyal Constant Reader, I felt like this might be the book to jumpstart my COVID reading habits, and I was mostly right. Similiar to earlier collections like Different Seasons, The Bachman Books, Full Dark No Stars, and Four Past Midnight, If It Bleeds is made up of four long-ish, unrelated stories (or novellas, if you’re feeling fancy): Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, If It Bleeds, and […]

Prepping for the next HBO show

The Outsider by Stephen King

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I missed this one when it originally came out because I had heard there was a connection to the Bill Hodges trilogy and I hadn’t read the final two yet.  The connection doesn’t happen until more than halfway through and involves one of the characters helping with an investigation while also alluding to the final fate of some of the other characters.  In other words, it doesn’t have major plot spoilers for the trilogy so it’s really just a personal preference thing for other readers. […]



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