Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You do not need to be afraid. You do not have to be good…You are the scariest thing in the woods.”

Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser

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I picked this book up after seeing it on a “Most Anticipated Books of 2026” list, but I was skeptical. It’s a retelling of Cinderella but from the perspective of the stepmother. I thought it was part of the Disney Villains YA series and was confused as to why it was getting picked up for celebrity book clubs.  But apparently, despite the protagonist sharing a name with the stepmother in the Disney version, this book is, as far as I can tell, unaffiliated with Disney […]

So Good

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

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This is a searing look at Depression/Dust Bowl/Migrant farmer camps in California, as previously depicted in Steinbeck’s famous Grapes of Wrath, but from the point of view of a woman.  Almost as if the famous portrait by Dorothea Lange come to life. Elsa Wolcott, raised in a prosperous Texas family in 1921, is a so-called old maid and is rejected by her family for her ungainly height and plain looks.  One night, though, she takes a chance on Rafe Martinelli, the handsome young son of […]

“The night without stars”, he said finally. “I beg your pardon?” “Your face without freckles,” he explained.

Game of Rogues by Julie Anne Long

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4.5 stars Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on June 3rd, 2026. Genevieve “Ginny” Woodville travels alone and unchaperoned to London to confront the man known as “The Reaper”, Gabriel Marchand, owner of one of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs/gaming hells in the city. Her newly come of age younger brother, who also recently became the Earl of Highgrove after the death of a cousin, got drunk one evening and gambled away not […]

Not the Alphabet book I grew up on

Queer History A to Z: 100 Years of LGBTQ+ Activism b by Robin Stevenson and Vivian Rosas

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Queer History A to Z: 100 Years of LGBTQ+ Activism by Robin Stevenson and illustrated by Vivian Rosas is a middle grade alphabet book that is also a landmine of wonder tidbits. The version I found was from 2024 and was still an online copy. However, it was not complete so I hope to find a finished copy sometime. The list of letters and definitions are not just A is for Activist, or M is for Marsha P (though they do make an appearance) but […]

Not-so-distant future

Identical by Leah Hayes

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Sometimes I read a book that makes me both love and hate it simultaneously. It is an emotional book that can make me ill. It is something that I both understand on a miniscule level and one where I can not understand it at all. Identical by Leah Hayes (read via an online reader, due mid September 2026) is one of those books. All my love goes to the minimal illustrations, as the story is too sad and thoughtful to think about. Things are artistic, […]

Make a Place for This One

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Gladstone

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The freshly minted Pulitzer Prize winner for best nonfiction, There Is No Place for Us: Homelessness in America, is absolutely heartbreaking and terrifying–but I couldn’t look away from the text for the 24 hours it took me to read Brian Gladstone’s book. The scope is simultaneously wide and narrow. Gladstone follows five families of various shapes and sizes in Atlanta in the early 2020s. Each of these families have their own shapes, sizes, textures, and personal challenges, but they all have one thing in common: […]



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