Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Let’s go to sleep

The Dreamway by Lisa Papademetriou

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I do not remember how I found out about The Dreamway by Lisa Papademetriou but find it I did, and an interlibrary loan is how it came to be in my possession. I would have loved this as a 10-to 13-year-old. The story is cute, but not overly cutesy. There is enough fantasy to grab the fantasy reader, but enough reality to grab them, too. The sibling story is interesting. The narrator’s disability does not come into play a lot (and in fact could be […]

The struggle between who you are and who you want to be

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

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The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett was another Mocha Girls Read pick. I definitely would not have read it without the book club impetus. To no surprise, as indicated by this annual onslaught of reviews, I procrastinated reading it. I ended up reading most of it in one day. It was well worth the time and exceeded my expectations. The novel centers on two Black twin sisters who run away from a small Black community.  The town prides itself on being a close-knit town for […]

Cute in a not eat your face way

Fly by Night by Tara O’Connor.

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Thanks to my holiday book exchange, I had a chance to pick up Fly by Night by Tara O’Connor.  I had started a sampler awhile back and thought it would be slightly on the slower side, but still it was a fascinating concept. Twin sisters, one who has gone missing, and spooky felt right.  And yes, it was not super-fast pace, but kept things moving. The idea of true supernature never came into play for those few pages, but it quickly does once you get […]

“When you’re twins, the magic just never ends” (Little Richard, Philip Bailey)

Twins: A Graphic Novel by Varian Johnson

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Twins: A Graphic Novel has two main elements that make it both familiar and new. Varian Johnson does the “twin thing” (two sisters who are best friends, know each other in ways even their parents cannot know, and are each other’s “partner in crime/fear/whatever is needed), but then makes a new twist with having a modern touch with a blended family of color. The story is simple: Two sisters; almost identical (one is slightly taller; this one has a scar) and best friends. That is […]

“We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.”

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

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I was given this book as a birthday present about six years ago by my friend Lindsay and it has been languishing on my shelves ever since. Enter 2020, the Read Harder Challenge, and whatever the fuck else has been going on this year that means I’m reading more from my own shelves than anywhere else. And I’m glad I finally got around to it! This is an over 600 page literary fiction book, but it reads in the way I like my literary fiction […]

Hawaii is for lovers

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

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The Unhoneymooners was my first foray into the Christina Lauren catalog. I’m trying to become more versed in contemporary romance. In March, I visited Hawaii and this book allowed me to daydream again about island life. This book seemed like a perfect match. Olive Torres thinks she is cursed with bad luck. She is recently laid off and has moved into a small apartment. Her love life is nonexistent. Meanwhile, her sister, Amy, seems to have all the good luck. She has a knack for winning […]



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