Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not As Many People Die as You Would Expect

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

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“Present day” in The Twelve is set about 5 years after events in The Passage. Some of the former cast of characters are tracking down virals, or trying to, at any rate. Others are slaves in Iowa in a settlement of sorts run by “redeyes” – people who are essentially “familiars” to the virals. Their nefarious plan is to have the 11 remaining virals move into something like a bunker in the town so they have a steady supply of food (i.e., people and livestock) […]

Nicola Barker (1)

The Burley Cross Post Box Theft by Nicola Barker

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If you’ve ever read a Nicola Barker novel you more or less know what to expect, which is to mostly not know what to expect. Her books have a kind of wildness to them, and especially in voice. They’re also usually very funny. This book is all of those things. The book begins with a long rant from a police inspector handing off a mystery to another detective. In the rant, among other things, we learn that in the small town of Burley Cross (BC) […]

A cautionary tale that will probably never appear on a Florida school library shelf

Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin

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CBR15Passport Different Genres: juvenile fiction  Eugene Yelchin is a talented illustrator and writer. I first became aware of his work through the brilliant The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, and then last year I read and reviewed his illustrated account of his childhood, The Genius Under the Table. Special thanks to Black Raven for recommending that book and for giving Breaking Stalin’s Nose to me for the holiday exchange. Yelchin was born and raised in the Soviet Union and left in the 1980s. While he would […]

“Forty years on one of the most elite assassin squads on earth and it finished like this, with a free cruise and a bouncy letter from a girl who signed her letters with hashtags.”

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

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In ten words or less: Retired female assassins: promising premise, fumbles in execution. Retired female assassins are staring down the barrel of retirement when they’d rather still be staring down the barrel of a gun. They miss the action, but they’ve earned their rest and a cruise seems like, well, like something to do with plenty of time on their hands. The contract on the hitman trope is popular in books and in movies. However, Raybourn has taken us away from male characters and even […]

More of this, please.

Axiom’s End by Lindsey Ellis

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(Minor spoilers) In an alternate 2007, President Bush is dealing with (in addition to the War on Terror) his own Julian Assange-type character named Nils Ortega. Except Ortega is also kind of an Alex Jones-type person, as he’s obsessed with supposed cover ups of alien visitations. His daughter is a college dropout living with her mother and two siblings, and they were all abandoned by Nils after he leaked some government documents called “the Fremda Memo” and fled the United States. The narrative is mostly […]

“Her mom carefully selected her memories to reflect her established opinions, and it turned her mind into a bowl of lettuce she believed was a salad.”

The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal

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In the past, I’ve started my reviews with “in one word” and offered one word that sums up my feelings on a book, but over time, that has gotten stale. Instead, I’m going to give myself ten words or less to try to sum up a book, because why not. (My reviews, my rules). In Ten Words or Less: Complex female characters uncover their potential and discover family destiny. This little book charmed me and was exactly the kind of light read I needed at […]



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