Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


About jmsudar

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JM Sudar dreams of someday walking into a bookstore and seeing a book of his own for sale. After hearing his wife lament that she forgot to write her Cannonball review _again_, he decided to pick up a controller and give it a try himself.

jmsudar's Reviews:

The Book of Three

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

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After reading a smidge too much big kid literature, I decided to reread one of my favorite YA book series of all time: The Chronicles of Prydain. I reread these stories at least half a dozen times in middle school through high school. They inspired my love of fantasy stories that persists to this day, and I can tell that the lessons they imparted were important, because they were hard for me to hear as a kid. The story is set in a half-history half-mythological […]

The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

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The second in my Literature with a Capital L series, The Sun Also Rises is another Hemingway, this time featuring am early-thirties group of friends trundling around Europe having adventures consisting primarily of fishing, sex, and bull-fighting. I’m not going to rehash everything I said in my previous post, but my problem with Hemingway boils down to the fact that the Wikipedia plot summary for this book, aka what should be the most succinct summary you can find, begins with “on the surface,” suggesting that […]

Orochi Vol. 3

Orochi Vol. 3 by Kazuo Umezu

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I started reading Kazuo Umezu because Junji Ito is one of my favorite authors. Drifting Classroom was the best starting point because it was weird and misery porn and bloody (and poopy), but at least it has a strong narrative to follow. Orochi is a lot weirder and harder to recommend. In Orochi, the titular character is a strange woman who travels the world with strange powers. The powers are poorly defined. She can sort of touch someone with the tip of her finger and […]

Timeline

Timeline by Michael Crichton

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Michael Crichton used to be my favorite author. Then I read State of Fear. That’s not really an exaggeration, State of Fear is so bad it changed my whole opinion on the author. It’s a breathless screed against climate science wrapped in the barest wrapper of a story. It’s one of those “why even did you write this” things that doesn’t feel at all out of place in 2023, the age of Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman and Elon Musk demanding a renowned vaccine […]

Chickaloonies Vol. 1

Chickaloonies Vol. 1 by Dimi Macheras and Casey Silver

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I discovered Chickaloonies because it was on the bartop at one of my favorite bars in all the world: Seattle’s Twilight Exit. Run, don’t walk there, and order the fried mozzarella. It turned out the bartender was the author, drawing on his experience as an Alaska native and tribe member. I was immediately drawn to the bright and colorful cover and asked for more details. He described it as “Avatar from the perspective of Native American myth.” Sold. The book is chock full of details […]

Berserk Deluxe edition Vol. 13

Berserk by Kentaro Miura

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The worst part about Berserk is that I can’t recommend it to anyone, and indeed the gorgeous deluxe editions are sort of hidden inside my house. I dread the idea of my mother or mother in law picking one up and leafing through it casually. It’s an unfortunate position to be in because the art is unbelievable. Soaring castles, epic battles, imaginative monsters, and detailed character designs. But, the rub: also graphic rape, violence, casual racism, outdated sexism, demonic engines powered by suffering, and torture […]



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