Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. … You are allowed to just live.” – Bingo #3!

A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers

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CBR14 Bingo: “Cozy” – This book is like a warm, reassuring hug. I first read A Psalm for the Wild-Built in December 2021.  This is a reread in preparation for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.  The first time reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built, I was blown away.  Chamber’s evocative writing, meditations on purpose and our place within the natural world, along with the depictions of the soothing powers of tea spoke directly to me.  A Psalm for the Wild-Built was just as affective the second time as […]

My, my, that was messy…

I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman

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WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW! Back when I first saw this on the shelf of Target, I didn’t realize it was actually one of Oseman’s older books, just released for the first time in the US. I almost bought it then, but had to look it up since I didn’t recall her having posted about any new books, and held off for the time being because I knew all too well how low her lows were when she was starting out. It wasn’t long before I was […]

COVID and Traveling Gave Me Time to Read

Normal People by Sally Rooney

The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey

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I had started reading Normal People quite some time ago but put it down for long enough that when I was ready to start reading it again, I decided to just start over, and I think that helped my enjoy the book more. The re-read of part of the book helped me understand the characters in a way that I hadn’t the first time I started reading it. At this point, probably most people know the plot. Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron grew up in the […]

More horror in real life

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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All month I have searched for a “perfect” horror novel, something to match the energy of “spooky season”. I read several thrillers, but nothing that really fit the bill. And then, on Monday, real life horror intervened and now I need to put the horror novel aside – I’m hoping to find some books that are more comforting, scares are the last thing I want. I’m a teacher in St. Louis, and not two miles from my house something horrific happened and I am still […]

Easy Rawlins

Black Betty by Walter Mosley

A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley

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Black Betty Easy Rawlins is hired to find a woman named Elizabeth ostensibly because her rich employer is looking for her. The woman has been working in the house for this rich woman and the story goes that she is looking for Elizabeth in order to offer to pay her more if she comes back to work. This story of course is fishy. Also fishy is the fact that Rawlins is being approached by not even a third party so much as a fourth or […]

Nerdy lesbian romance

How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

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How to Excavate a Heart is a book that hit so many good and familiar notes for me. Shani has just finished her first semester at college where she also got her first girlfriend, who broke up with her just before the start of winter break. Luckily Shani got accepted to an internship that the Smithsonian museum of natural history where she’ll work under her idol on coelacanth fossils, giving her distance from home and something to put her focus towards that isn’t her broken […]



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