Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


I guess my reading vibe this year is slanting towards cozy and comforting

The Last Father-Daughter Dance: A Short Story by Lisa Wingate

Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes 1) by Travis Baldree

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I don’t know if you can call this first book exactly cozy, but it was definitely comforting.  Along with the storyline, there’s something comforting (to me at least) about a short story. There are character arcs, plot twists, and usually everything is tied up by the end. It calms the soul to not have to wait! This book is about a woman reconnecting with her ailing father. Kalista is an Olympian, and her father was a long-time high school coach. He’s scheduled for heart surgery […]

Life, uhh, finds a way. – The Divine Jeff

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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I requested Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Green City Wars because I was intrigued by the premise – Philip Marlow meets Redwall with a raccoon private investigator. This is not an inaccurate description. BUT! It’s Phillip Marlow meets Redwall written by Adrian Tchaikovsky. When I understood the premise of the world in Green City Wars, I had to lie down for a bit. It is so deeply dystopian. The humans have created what may be a utopia for themselves, and to achieve it, they’ve bio-engineered small animals, amphibians, […]

Lies Upon Lies

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City, and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

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Rating: 3.5 Stars In a nutshell: 19-year-old Nick has gone missing. We eventually learn he has died from a fall – or jump? – from a building along the Thames in London. His death reveals he has been lying about who he is, pretending to be the son of a Russian oligarch. Best for: Fans of investigative reporting. Quote that made me think: N/A Why I chose it: Say Nothing and Empire of Pain are two of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. As […]

“The beginning of a novel is like a first date.”

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

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Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Adapted into movie or TV show (on Apple+ now) 19-year-old Margo Millet has an ill-advised affair with her English professor at college and gets pregnant. Against the advice of absolutely everyone, including her mother (a former Hooters waitress), she decides to keep it. Unfortunately, being pregnant and then a young single mother isn’t especially attractive on the job market, and before she knows it, two of her roommates have also moved out, because they just can’t handle the noise and the […]

Surprisingly memorable and moving

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

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I saw Memorial Days (2025) by Geraldine Brooks on a number of year-end lists. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a book about grief, but there was something about the description that made me want to give it a try. This was my first book by Brooks, but I really enjoyed her writing. I thought she was honest, vulnerable, and insightful. On May 27, 2019, Brook’s husband and partner of over thirty years, Tony Horwitz, collapsed and died on a sidewalk in DC, where he was […]

Time is change. Change is time.

Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

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Another excellent library book. When I read fiordeligi’s review of Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian‘s Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, I knew I needed to read it asap. And then it took me a while for my library hold to come in. Fairly early in the book, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian relates a sexual assault she experienced at elementary school after she stood in front of her class and talked about slugs. I had to lie down for a bit, because I remember the ways the […]



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