Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“That was the secret of a happy marriage. Step away from the rage.”

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

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At this point, I’ve read a lot of books by Liane Moriarty. I’ve liked some better than others, but I’ve found them all interesting. So, it wasn’t difficult to pick up Apples Never Fall (2021) when I saw it was at the library. Although Apples Never Fall wasn’t as compulsively readable as some of her books, there were some good characters with some dysfunctional family dynamics. Stan and Joy Delaney just sold their tennis school, and are figuring out retirement in their empty nest. Their four children: Amy, Logan, […]

These were 100% cover reads, but they (mostly) ended up being great!

The Tiger Came to the Mountains (The Trespass Collection, #1) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Wildlife (The Trespass Collection, #2) by Jeff VanderMeer

The Backbone of the World (The Trespass Collection, #3) by Stephen Graham Jones

Stag (The Trespass Collection, #4) by Karen Russell

A Righteous Man (The Trespass Collection, #5) by Tochi Onyebuchi

Bloody Summer (The Trespass Collection, #6) by Carmen Maria Machado

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As mentioned in this post’s title, I saw these covers and immediately went OOOOH. Click click click. Free? Okay! Also, the idea of various genres of story that deal with nature and wildlife clashing with humans appeals to me. I did four of them by audio, and all four narrators were excellent (even for the one I two-starred), and two by Kindle. If you have Prime, they are free for you. Some of them really surprised me! “Wildlife,” by Jeff VanderMeer — 2 STARS This […]

Dissolution

Dissolution by CJ Samson

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I guess the early to mid 2000s was a big Thomas Cromwell moment in fiction. An honest question: how well known is T. Cromwell apart from the recent novels and tv shows? Like, do British schoolchildren learn about him? Is he an easy reference point, or is he more of a historical plucked from relative obscurity? This novel takes place more or less within the same context as the Hilary Mantel novels, but our main character is one of Thomas Cromwell’s “Commissioners”, a kind of […]

There are more words in the publisher description than the whole book

Baboon! by Pau

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Comment one: There are more words in the publisher description, or this review, then there are in the entire book of Baboon! by Pau/Pablo Marcos, as it is a wordless graphic novel. Comment two: I cannot say it better so word for word the publisher’s description: “After the death of its adopted leopard mother, an orphaned baboon wanders the wild in search of companionship and a sense of identity. Stumbling upon the troop of baboons from which it was originally stolen, the baboon falls in […]

Sing or dig?

Song of the Court by Katy Farina

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Song of the Court by Katy Farina is a cute story about being true to yourself. It might be a bit sugary sweet for some (probably mostly adults and/or older readers), but for the ages six to eight crowd, and if the reader is more “girly” in their tastes, it is right up their alley. There are princesses, music, gardening, best friends, and a lot more. The illustrations are bold, but not necessarily to extreme. Farina makes them in an anime format, that has hints […]

is it too late to change your ways?

L.A. Weather by Maria Amparo Escandon

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I’ve got high expectations for novels set in Southern California. If very little besides, say, the beaches and Hollywood register for the writer in question, maybe also some smog and traffic, I judge that hard. If you can’t say “I’d take the 101 to the 10 to the 405 for you” and understand that as an expression of love, write about somewhere else, please. So one thing I liked very immediately about Maria Amparo Escandon’s L.A. Weather was the real sense of place. This isn’t just LA, […]



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