Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Much Bigger CW Needed

Dan Da Dan vol. 1 by Yukinobu Tatsu

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I have seen Dan Da Dan manga all over social media/the internet, so when I saw volume 1 at the library I picked it up out of curiosity. The premise is interesting: two high school outsiders, one obsessed with aliens, the other believes in spirits, dare each other to prove the other person’s belief is invalid by sending each other to the most likely haunted/abduction sites in the area, per the web. Guess what happens next? One thing I hadn’t noticed initially was that there […]

The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube

Crush by Richard Siken

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I learned about Richard Siken through Pinterest of all things. For those of you who frequent Pinterest, especially those dedicated to romantic pairings from books, the boards are littered with snippets of poetry rendered in retro fonts. Bits of Siken’s poem Little Beast kept showing up in my feed. However, finding a copy of his Yale Series of Younger Poets poetry collection was challenging and I had to special-order it from the UK. Since it is only sixty-two pages plus a forward, I thought I […]

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”

Beartown (Beartown #1) by Fredrik Backman

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WOOF. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this book. I was a big fan of Backman’s heartbreaking and hopeful A Man Called Ove so when a friend said they had just finished it and was going on a bit of a Backman Bender (alliteration!) I was happy to join in for a two person book club. But alas, I gotta say now that I’m done, I would not have finished this book if I was not reading it with a […]

Ok I’m bragging, but who will if I don’t? Cannonball #9

The Duel: A Story about Peace by Ines Viegas Oliveira

A Stronger Home by Katrina Chen and Elaine Su

My Dear Sea by André Carrilho

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I was reading picture books recently and found that all had a strong theme, but I was not sure if I really liked them. I knew I liked the idea of them, but did I like how they were done? So, I present to you them and see what you think. All were read via an online reader copy. The first was The Duel: A Story about Peace by Ines Viegas Oliveira, and translated by Rosa Churcher Clarke (due mid-November 2024). The theme sounded obvious […]

Deadpool Does D&D

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

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Imagine if you took Deadpool, made him a her named Davi, made him the main playable character in a video game, and tossed into a D&D sort of world in which (true to video game), every time he dies, he goes back to the re-set position. And this happens hundreds of times as Davi keeps losing to the Dark Lord. But then, Deadpool/Davi decides that, instead of trying to save the world from the Dark Lord, why not just become said Lord instead? And let’s […]

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small

Zanzara by Gloria Vitanza Basile

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Born in poverty and raised in a squalid orphanage, Phaedra’s life transforms completely when her identity as a prince’s illegitimate daughter is revealed, vaunting her into the lap of luxury. But she has a long, tough path to tread still before she will reach her happy ending. I really, really love the crazy bloody bodice rippers of the 1970s and 80s. They are always wild and adventurous, often with a strong historical grounding, and take you careening through the kind of heroine’s journey that leave […]



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