Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Good Morning Romance

The AM Show by T.B. Markinson and Miranda MacLeod

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I love a book club. It’s so rare outside of them that we’re all reading the same books at the same time, and talking about books is one of my favorite things. At one point I was in three different book clubs, trying to juggle all the books and their deadlines. That may have been a tad excessive. We moved to virtual discussions during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, but real discussions were harder to have over Zoom, and only one of the book […]

A Hard-Hitting Fantasy

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

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I am absolutely adrift in feelings after finishing this masterpiece and I cannot wait to see what happens next with Hassa, Sylah, and Anoor. The Final Strife is a story of survival, family, and fighting to make and be a change for good. Sylah is part of the Stolen, a group of Ember children stolen by Dusters to win the Aktibar and rid the Empire of Embers. Hassa is a Ghosting, and in many ways she is invisible which allows her to know more than […]

No star burns forever

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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I have been really looking forward to reading this and for me it did not disappoint at all. I’m definitely a fan of Emily St. John Mandel, and I love authors who build an entire universe out of their characters without deliberately building a series / sequels. You can pick up any of her novels and see that they’re companions, without needing to read them in a particular order. I think it’s important to say that so anyone who is completely new to Emily St. […]

“To be the world, witnessing itself.”

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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Content warning – this book contains many mentions of suicide. The plot is very much “It’s a Wonderful Life”, but it’s set in England and instead of a family man on the brink it’s a woman in her mid thirties, single with no children, who is losing the will to live. Nora, our protagonist, has struggled with her mental health (it’s more or less implied – and maybe I’m filling in a bit here because I’ve read Haig’s other non-fiction book about his own struggles […]

“When the thing that is scaring you is already Jesus, who are you supposed to pray to?”

Cruddy by Lynda Barry

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Lynda Barry is best known for her comics work, but I also really love her two illustrated novels (Cruddy and The Good Times Are Killing Me), which it seems to me are somewhat overlooked (or maybe I was too young when they came out to notice their cultural impact). All her work deals with outsider teens who are dealing with abusive parents and societal alienation with no one to help them. Cruddy is a very bleak, blackly comic novel. I like the journal-type format that it uses, as […]

Drum solo please

Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules! by E. Charlton-Trujillo and Pat Zietlow Miller

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Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules! Or at least, Lupe Lopez thinks she does. Rules. And is a rock star. But when she has her first day of kindergarten, she has the distinction of being the first kindergarten to get in trouble on the first day of school. After all, her teacher does not appreciate that Lupe drums on everything: the desks, chairs, lunch trays…. And Lupe does not appreciate the rules the teacher has given her. Especially the one about losing her drumsticks if she […]



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