Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

So much fun. So fucked up. Can I say that?

The Mad and the Bad by Jean-Patrick Manchette

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First of all I have to cop to cheating on this. Kind of. The beginning of this review is maybe 2 years old, however, I just reread the book! So…recycling and expanding. It’s fine! la la la just never you mind I READ THIS IN ONE SITTING. It’s funny, it’s dark, it’s cartoonish, it’s Tarantinoesque, it’s either brilliant social/political/economic/mental health commentary or the rantings of a crazy person. Or both. I loved it. The friend who gave it to me said, “Yeah, he is pretty […]

Tana French is back with a vengeance and a penchant for Wild West-isms, and I am HERE. FOR. IT. 

The Searcher by Tana French

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This is a safe review; I’ll give you no spoilers and I’ll give you no major plot points- but I will let you know that no, we have not returned to the Dublin Murder Squad. While I found the departure disappointing in The Witch Elm, I found it thrilling here; the idyllic landscape filled with the insidious creep of small town communities. While we have not returned to the Murder Squad, we have returned to having a protagonist on the searching side of the law- and […]

Too Much and Too Little

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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Rivers Solomon tells an unflinching tale of slavery and survival, set in a future that is horrifically similar to both America’s dreadful past and terrible present. They sugarcoat nothing; what else would you expect from a story that starts with a gruesome amputation? I have to applaud Solomon for writing a brutal and gut wrenching story. They shout out the horrors of racism, giving graphic depictions of brutality. Black women are tortured, raped, and publicly executed, and Solomon makes you stare at these scenes of […]

“If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you.”

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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Never have truer words been spoken! This collection of short stories crept around my periphery for some time, and I am both overjoyed to have finally given in to it and disappointed in myself for not biting earlier. I came across it originally on a list of fairy-tale retellings on Autostraddle, and when it popped up again in the employee recommendations section of one of my favorite booksellers (Crow Bookshop in Burlington, what’s up!) I knew that it was meant to be. Still, it sat […]

Monster, or just another kid?

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri

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Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty is a graphic novel by G. Neri that is based on actual events. This is the story of how 11-year-old Roger (a fictional character) tries to make sense of the death of Robert “Yummy” Sandifer. Also 11-years-old. Also living in Chicago. A kid who was as sweet as the candy that gave him his nickname. A kid who would burn up a car if the owner disrespected him. A kid who called his grandmother home. A kid […]

Absolutely, Positively Not YA

Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga #4) by Pierce Brown

Dark Age (Red Rising Saga #5) by Pierce Brown

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So, I planned on writing a big post last year or the year before about wether or not the Red Rising series is YA. I do not remember where I fell on the spectrum then but I know, without a doubt, that I fall firmly in the NOT YA camp now. That said, I would absolutely let my children read these books and encourage any reader who was interested to read them. I tend to consider readers a little more mature than the average person […]



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