Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

2,650 Miles of Wilderness

Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail by Andrea Lankford

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There have been people attempting to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail since it was first established, and where people congregate there is also always some amount of tragedy. But when three young man vanish from the trail in a three-year period, former park ranger Andrea Lankford gets fascinated by the search for them. For a person who one day wants to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail (after a lot of preparation, mind you), I find myself reading a lot about wilderness disaster and crime stories. Maybe […]

“I am not responsible for the fake version of me you created in your head.”

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

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I cannot stop recommending this audiobook to people! It is twisty and dark and funny and surprising. I’m not sure if it would work in original book form, because the neat device about this book is that it’s a book, but also a podcast. I know, wait what? But it works so well! Five years ago Lucy’s best friend Savvy was murdered. Lucy was found covered in her blood, with no memory of what happened of the event. Everyone in her small town was quick […]

Magic isn’t real

The Mesmerist by Caroline Woods

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The story: Abby Mendenhall runs the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers in Minneapolis in the 1890s. A new girl, Faith, appears on the doorstep needing a place to stay. Faith doesn’t speak and quickly creeps out some of the other girls with her slightly witchy ways that hint at mesmerism, a sort of hypnotism that was trendy at the time and that didn’t require any words, only actions. Abby has Faith room with May, who is eager to leave the Bethany Home but only if […]

What is Yours?

Penance by Eliza Clark

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Penance is an interesting book. When I started it, I thought it’d be one of the best things I read this year: a clever dissection of true crime fandom. And by the end, I couldn’t wait to be done. Even the clever ending didn’t spruce it up for me. I appreciate what Eliza Clark is trying to do: expand on a crime to look at the broader story through the lens of a journalist who we know from the start is unreliable, which requires we approach […]

“He was a nobody. One of those shy kids who turned into social invalids when that first blast of adolescence hit, meekly accepted their fate, and became invisible.”

My Friend Dahmer: A Graphic Novel by Derk Backderf

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On a whim I grabbed this graphic novel back in spooky season, aka October aka why yes I am behind on reviews but committed to finishing out reviwing all the books I read in 2024 before the year is up. BUCKLE UP FOR LOADS OF REVIEWS, COMING AT YA. But I digress onto this review! Sometimes I feel like an outlier as a 40ish woman who does not have an affinity for true crime podcasts. In my 20s and 30s I had a long relationship […]

Who Wants to Be the Next Caliph?

American Caliph by Shahan Mufti

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Simmering political, religious, and racial tensions combine and erupt in three sieges led by the same strange Muslim group around Washington, DC after a years-long lead-up. I’m new to Washington DC, and still learning my way around the place as a city where people actually work and live divorced from the role that it plays in the United States’s government and politics. Part of that process has been learning more about the city’s history. Like with many things about DC, I had never heard of […]



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