Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An intense and timely YA thriller.

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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I’ve decided to keep this rounded down to four stars for now, because while the rest of the book was absolutely great, the climax was a little underwhelming for me, and that’s the moment you’re waiting for in a thriller. The epilogue ended the book on a great note, but this wasn’t a perfect read. It was very, very good, though, and I will definitely be checking out everything from this author going forward. If this is the book she can write at 21 years […]

“I guess that’s the world we live in today. A world where accusations sway opinion. A world where evidence doesn’t matter.”

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 22/30 This was really good, but I was able to connect the dots easier than I think the author wanted me to. If twists were all this book had going for it, I wouldn’t have liked it, but other elements were just as important if not more. In fact, I’d rather have a thriller/mystery with substance than twists that surprised me, although it’s fun when you can have both (I have one of those waiting to be […]

My first Grady Hendrix book, won’t be my last!

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 13/30 I was discombobulated for most of listening to this book. But I was interested the whole way through, and nothing about it felt lazy or half-done, like a certain other author’s work did for me. I should probably state up front that I am not at all a fan of slasher movies. In fact, I quite dislike them in general because I find them incredibly stressful and not cathartic in any way (although I have seen […]

A Very Thriller Retelling of Jane Eyre. Recommended for haters of Mr. Rochester. Fans of Bertha Mason might be disappointed.

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

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So many 3.5 star books lately, and so hard to decide whether to round up or down. In the end, it was down for this one, because I don’t think, had I not read Jane Eyre, that I would have been very interested in it at all. I think it would have read like just another thriller. But, it was well done, I think. I just have thriller fatigue. And I love Jane Eyre, and while this book shares characters, the characters don’t share motivations, […]

Big, stinky dog living under porch with a suitcase full of $400k and explosives.

The Drifter (Peter Ash, #1) by Nicholas Petrie

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This book was a gift I got from the CBR Book Exchange a couple years ago (thanks again, Jenny S!), and I just never got around to reading it because crime thrillers with hyper-masculine main characters and lots of shoot-’em up violence aren’t really my thing. I’m glad I gave it a shot, because although this book fits comfortably in that genre, I found the lead character Peter Ash, a veteran of the US Marine Corps, to be sensitively portrayed, and the plot itself had […]

Two murders decades apart, and I’m sorry, your character did what now??

What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin

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Settling on 3.5 stars for this one, rounded down. The second half of the book was more engaging/enjoyable for me, as by that point I had started to feel more than irritation for the characters, and the plot unraveling was sort of cool. But it also lost me a little at the end, because one of the main twists/reveals does not make sense! The book follows Kelly Lund, who in 1980 at the age of seventeen was convicted of the murder of famous film director […]



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