Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Grab bag of goodness!

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise

Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard

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I’m starting to get behind so I’m going with the group review format. I didn’t know how to do this until now so I’m hoping this saves my season when my laziness/procrastination (fine, its mostly because of Elden Ring) prevents me from getting my reviews written. These are three books that are very different in genre, but all quite good and recommended.   Malibu catches fire. It is simply what Malibu does from time to time. Tornadoes take the flatlands of the Midwest. Floods rise […]

“Children long to be eaten. Everyone knows that.”

XO Orpheus: 50 New Myths by Kate Bernheimer (editor)

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Am I typing this up while wearing a tee featuring the cover of the d’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths? YOU KNOW IT! That strange tome of simplified myth and ultra-bright illustration cracked open a need in me when I was very young. I re-read that book countless times, and used it as the entry point into the larger world of mythology. Combined with a Catholic upbringing that was far more focused on the deaths of the saints than on anything else, you could saw I […]

Each story is a glittering jewel set in a heavy crown.

Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories by Lauren Groff

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Often, short story collections can be a bit of a mixed bag – especially when all written by the same author. I frequently find myself speed-reading through “filler” in hopes of finding some “killer”. As always, Lauren Groff turns your expectations to crystal and smashes them into a million brittle and beautiful pieces. Each one of the eight stories collected in this book could be their own novels- I could spend days drifting through Groff’s worlds. The first tale, “Lucky Chow Fun”, takes place in […]

Best Historical Fiction Book Ever!

The Book Theif by Marcus Zusak

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The Book Theif by Marcus Zusak is a historical fiction book set during WWII. Although it is a holocaust book, it isn’t set from the traditional perspective nor does it follow the traditional characters. Told from the perspective of Death itself, The Book Theif follows the story of Liesel, a young German girl. She was sent to live with a foster family, the Hubermanns. At the start of the story, Liesel was 9 years old. Her father, whom she never knew, was a communist, and her […]

Unique Dystopian Novel Full of Twists

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina

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The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina is a dystopian young adult book set 300 years after the world ended in an environmental cataclysm. In this world, people with “abilities” (some sort of magical skill that they are born with) are considered a threat to “the balance” (an idea that is said to preserve harmony between people and the environment). Because of that, they don’t give citizenship to people with abilities. Instead, they can get exemptions (if their ability is useful to the government). […]

The View from Pompey’s Head

The View from Pompey's Head by Hamilton Basso

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I think I learned about this novel from reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but if not, something along the same lines that references this novel as examples of a Southern, urbane, low-key novel. And well, it’s definitely those things. It’s also a novel that spends most of the time not focusing on issues of race and racism, but there’s still a significant section within the middle that deals with racism in a curious, if not especially satisfying way. The novel is […]



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