Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Emotional Historical YA

Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall

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Yup, I cried, but no one is surprised. Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken is a story of resistance and making joy during dark times, as well as family and love. It is a story that examines when safety stops being enough and it’s time to resist and push back against harmful regimes. It is also the story of a group of friends navigating their friendship and society when it’s not safe to be Jewish, it’s not safe to be queer, it’s not safe to be […]

Lumbersnacks Ahead

Owen by Elle M Drew

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Elle M. Drew has written a novel for which the plus size community has been yearning. OWEN is about a plus size female named Tess who loves sex and loves her body. Her weight is not something that needs to be overcome for her to find happiness. She has moved to a tiny, remote mountain town to do some soul searching at the encouragement of her cousin. Owen is an enormous bear of a man. I mean that quite literally since he’s a bear shifter. […]

An old-fashioned book, and I mean that in the best possible way

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins

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CBR14 BINGO: Heart, because I received this book from my hubby for our anniversary, and also because it was the inspiration for a movie I absolutely love. Long before I ever owned a home, much less thought about remodeling one, I loved the movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, my two favorite actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When my husband and I began pursuing the idea of doing major renovations on our house about five years ago, the movie […]

I like you just the way you are

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

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This is one of the sweetest stories I’ve ever read. It’s about difference, exclusion, prejudice, unconventional families, the magic of love and inclusion, which all sounds lovely and perhaps a bit cliché. The thing is, author TJ Klune writes about these topics in a way that is sometimes surprising and always effective. Klune has created a world in which magic and “monsters” exist, and those children who show signs of having magic are separated from the rest of society and put in orphanages run by […]

You Have To Keep Breaking Your Heart Until It Opens

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

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It must be nice sometimes to have no feelings. I envy you.’ I considered this, then said: ‘I believe I have many feelings. The more I observe, the more feelings become available to me.’ She laughed unexpectedly, making me start. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘maybe you shouldn’t be so keen to observe. – Kazuo Ishiguro This book was recommended to me by a fellow SciFi aficionado. I had heard of it in passing but, as I have never read any of Ishiguro’s other works, […]

Appreciating a book vs. liking it

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

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This is totally not my usual type of book, but a reader acquaintance is a big fan of the author, and I do like books about books, so I decided to give this one a try. It’s mostly lovely. The writing is so good – I can see why my acquaintance is a fan. Margaret is a self-sufficient introvert who works at the bookshop her father owns. She’s an amateur biographer, doing research for fun and occasionally writing an article or book about a person […]



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