Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“When someone describes a man as harmless, he ends up being a villain.”

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Dark Corner selection – February 26 Defeat the Goblin – The pebble book – a book that was gifted to you Monthly Keyword 26: Sun Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book with multiple POVs Read the Rainbow: Black This is a book with a number of different POV characters. There is Serapio, a blind young man whom we first encounter as a child, being horribly mutilated by his mother (who subsequently throws herself off a building). All this horrific violence is to make him a […]

College Friends

So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder

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If I had to say something in it’s favor, I guess I’d tell you that I flew through Grant Ginder’s So Old, So Young, a novel about college friends that follows them from their days just after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania into their forties. Of course, that’s largely because of how insubstantial and weightless it is. The main characters are Mia (journalist), Marco (finance), Sasha (gallerist), Theo (lawyer), Adam (something, but mostly defined as “gay”), and Richie (also gay, but defined more frequently […]

“He who learns must suffer.”

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

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Ordinary Grace is a coming-of-age-novel about a thirteen year-old boy named Frank living in a small town in Minnesota in 1961. It covers the events of a summer marked by tragedy, in the form of accidents, suicide, and (possibly) murder. Frank’s father is the local minister, so he gets a front row seat to all of the heartbreak and pain in the community. Throughout the book, Frank comes face-to-face with the realities of life and death, and that terrible understanding that maybe the adults in his […]

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches.”

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work has been hit-or-miss for me in the past. I liked Gods of Jade and Shadow, loved Mexican Gothic, but didn’t much care for The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. I’m happy to report though, that I very much enjoyed The Bewitching. This is a gothic horror novel, following three young women across three different timelines. The main storyline follows Minerva, a graduate student in the 1990s, who is writing a graduate thesis about obscure horror novelist Beatrice Tremblay. The second timeline follows Minerva’s great-grandmother Alba as a young […]

I’m in the future, where you are too

Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura

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Kokoro is a lonely teenager who’s been bullied by classmates to the point of dropping out of school. She spends her days in her bedroom, afraid to leave the house, until one day, her bedroom mirror starts to glow. When she touches it, she’s pulled into a strange castle, along with 6 other teens. The castle is guarded by a girl in wolf mask who tells them there’s a hidden key, and whoever finds it will be granted one wish. The Wolf Queen, as they […]

Lonely Angry Child

Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy

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A well-written and shockingly honest but very tough read for me. I just kept whip lashing between enraged and sad. Seventeen year old Waldo is a high school senior with a dead end job and not much else. She lives with her single mother who is never actually home. She is starving- for clothes, sugar, love, attention, anything… for her creative writing teacher Mr. Korgy. He complements her unique voice and seems to see her in a way nobody else does. He is twice her […]



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