Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


A strange little fantasy. I expected nothing less from this author.

City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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This is a tough book to sink your teeth into. It’s slow to start, and slow to catch your emotions (if it ever catches them all), but still, for the right reader this book could work very well. I always appreciate a well-executed attempt at a unique structure, and we have that here in abundance. Up front, though, the reason this is getting 3.5 stars is that though there were bits that caught my imagination in the first half of the book, it didn’t really […]

Summer of 1999

Home is Where The Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose (Author), January LaVoy (Narrator), Cassandra Campbell (Narrator), Brittany Pressley (Narrator), Andrew Eiden (Narrator)

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We sometimes (sort of jokingly but also sort of not) say in my immediate family that we only get together with the extended family when there is a wedding or when there is a funeral.  Big life events bring people together, and it is the passing of their mother (Laura) that brings the siblings in this novel back into each other’s orbits.  And once they are back in each other’s lives, old tensions start to rise, exacerbated by the little fact that, oh yeah, their […]

It is A Truth Universally Acknowledged That a Mantis Shrimp Must Be in Want of Something to Punch

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

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Ed Yong takes us through the vast world of animal senses with understandable explanations of complicated science and a startling humor that made me laugh out loud, in public, many times. From misquoting Jane Austen to lamenting his poor choices in clothing, Yong adds delightful levity to a complex and fascinating subject. When we think about how animals see the world around them, we are already biasing our analysis based on humanity’s strongest sense, that of sight. How an animal “sees” the world is better […]

The Powerful Pivot

Machiavelli For Women by Stacey Vanek Smith

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Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace is a self-help novel through the lens of The Prince. What can women learn from Machiavelli and apply in the 21st century workplace? A fair bit, as it turns out. Smith has done a decent job here of breaking down the struggles that women face in the professional world and how, with a bit of knowledge, perspective, and strategy, these struggles can be overcome. The book is peppered with real case studies […]

There’s a Girl in a Tower, But This Isn’t Her Story

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

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If you know me, you know that a good fairytale retelling or interpretation is totally my jam. Robin McKinley had me by the throat for years thanks to Beauty, Deerskin, Spindle’s End, etc. So when I learned that T. Kingfisher, an author whose books I’ve previously enjoyed (and who is a delightful follow on used-to-be-Twitter), had a re-telling of Sleeping Beauty, I was more than down. Thornhedge is the story of Toadling, who was stolen by the faeries as a newborn babe, adopted by a […]

I tried to like this book. I just could not.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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I really tried with this book. I borrowed the Kindle version a few months ago and got multiple hours into it. Then I just could not continue with the never-ending trauma / bad luck / shitty situations this kid was in. I guess my bad feelings went away, because I saw my sister had the Audible version last week. I gave it another shot. I started like two hours in, because I knew I had gotten at least that far. I probably listened for another […]



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