Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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When Misfits Go Exploring

The Marsh Fellows by Anna-Laura Sullivan

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Once upon a time a young girl liked to read. She grew up to be an adult (physically) who liked to read. And one day, due to an email she received saying, “Sign up for a chance to win these books” she did. And she won several online reader copies from IDW Comics & Entertainment and Top Shelf Productions. She was excited. Finally a lunchtime came where she could start reading. She was not sure which one to start with, but since one book had […]

If it first you don’t succeed brush yourself off and try again, try again

The Do-Over by Lynn Painter

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My second read of the year comes from the long-standing tradition between my spouse and me: At the end of each year, we jot down five books for the other person to read over the upcoming year. I confess that The Do-Over was from the 2024 list, but in the spirit of the book, I thought I should go ahead and get ‘er read (a do-over!). I enjoyed the book and found it to be good medicine for our toxic times. Emily Hornby is the kind […]

Verity

Verity by Colleen Hoover

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There are two reasons I opted to spend a few hours of my one precious life reading a Colleen Hoover novel. The first is the upcoming film adaptation starring Dakota Johnson and, more importantly, Anne Hathaway. (I am violating my longstanding ban on “Now a Major Motion Picture” cover for Hathaway.) The second reason is that I have heard from a few different people that Verity is the Colleen Hoover novel that even people who hate Colleen Hoover think is good. That intrigued me. I […]

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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Trigger warning: Rape I have to say that I really enjoyed this novel, but after a while it dragged for me. I loved the characters of Elizabeth and Calvin, but the book started to feel flat to me after [incident] and then it just felt a bit like it spun it’s wheels til we synched up with how Elizabeth got her cooking show. And I won’t lie, Elizabeth is hard to like at times while reading. I think that Garmus was going for her being […]

Sad Gay Bois

Role Model (Game Changers #5) by Rachel Reid

The Long game (Game Changers #6) by Rachel Reid

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

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I don’t know how I ended up reading so many books about gay men this year (and I still have Song of Achilles on my TBR, so go figure) but by and large I’m enjoying myself, so whatever.    The Long Game (Rachel Reid) ***½ Shane and Ilya are back! Everyone’s favourite gay hockey players have moved from casual hookups to being in an actual, honest-to-God relationship – one that they still have to keep hidden from everyone because the media still pitches them as […]

Accept the things you cannot change or change the things you cannot accept?

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

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The Memory Police is an unsettling novel. The descriptions I read in advance made it sound a bit like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. It is a dystopian novel, and it does involve the authoritarian suppression of knowledge and personal freedom, but while I think of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as “political” science fiction, The Memory Police is not exactly that. The most disturbing acts of suppression in The Memory Police come from within the people themselves. The story is set on an island where some […]



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