Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You know, Kiley Forge, most people like me.” “I’m not most people.” “Oh, I’m aware.“

The Scoring Secret by Ainsley Booth

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One of the reasons I like duet narration is because the way many men voice women grates on my nerves. In duet narration, that’s not an issue. This very much increased my enjoyment of The Scoring Secret. In general, I like Ainsley Booth/Zoe York’s books. They are very readable, and satisfying. The first book in the series, The Playing Game, is one of her best books. The Scoring Secret is a good read, not quite as good as its predecessor, but still good. The narrators, […]

No wonder Haiti has some many issues.

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

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A sprawling tale of the complex and extremely bloody history of the melting pot that was early 17th century Haiti.  It’s a seething brew of the indigenous people of Haiti, slaves brought from Africa to work the sugar plantations, and the various European settlers from Spain, England, and especially France.  And although Haiti was a colony of France at the time, the French were not at all a cohesive group – there were at least three groups of French since this is the period of […]

Fooled me twice, shame on me

The Shippers by Katherine Center

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2.5 stars Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book will be out on May 19th. Josephine “JoJo” Burton runs away from her own wedding, after her childhood best friend, Cooper Watts, shows up unexpectedly from London just as she’s about to walk down the aisle, and makes her realise that she really doesn’t want to be with her fiancee. The next morning, he’s on a plane back to London. JoJo has never been lucky […]

Oh God, I’m Discoursing (Mac Barnett’s MAKE BELIEVE)

Make Believe by Mac Barnett

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Mac Barnett is one of my favorite picture book authors. My favorite book of his, The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown, is one of my favorite picture books period. I reviewed it here for this very reading challenge! So I eagerly preordered my copy of Make Believe, his first book for adults, a book about the craft of writing for children. I got tickets to see the launch event of his book tour, a conversation with Jeff Kinney at Kinney’s indie bookstore in Plainville, MA. […]

Tl:dr – Cannabis turns anxious, uptight ER doc into anxious hoochie daddy who listens to his patients.

Pot Shot by Laura Piper Lee

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For a book I ended up loving, I struggled at a couple of points early in the book. First of all, there is a medical emergency in the first chapter that brings Nomi and Julian back together. That had me putting the book down for a week. The other challenge I had was Julian for the first quarter or so of the book. He is an anxious, uptight, know-it-all and he stressed me out so much I put the book down and almost didn’t pick […]

Funny, Quirky, and Heartfelt

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly

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What an underhyped gem this is. It’s funny, with quirky characters and an emotional core. Set in New Zealand, the book alternates the POVs of the titular siblings, who are biracial, gay, and living together as roommates. It’s a slice of life novel with a large focus on the main characters’ romantic and family relationships. This might be the funniest book I’ve read. Usually when I read something funny in a book I smile or just internally recognize that it’s amusing. It’s fairly uncommon for […]



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