Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“In love and life, we never know when we are telling ourselves stories. We are the ultimate unreliable narrators.”

Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

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In one word: Downward spiral A quick summary of my feels on this book, as told via texts to my friend, the librarian leading our book club discussion group. March 6 Ma’am I am really into this searching for Sylvie Lee!! It’s very readable but I keep putting it down cuz it’s a bit sad. But very good. March 10 Okay so now I’m halfway through and it’s just so diiiire. Like a grey day in The Netherlands. Perfect for our shit weather. Ha. March […]

Cat Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard

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Elmore Leonard is known for his convoluted crime plots and his memorable characters, with a special emphasis on the bad guys, whom he imbues with actual personalities as opposed to goals and desires. Leonard is the only author I’ve read whose villains seem like they might go to the movies or have a favorite drink, for example. In Cat Chaser, Leonard’s gift for creating realistically complicated situations in which human failings and foibles lead to plans going awry and poor decisions being made is as […]

More Than a Female James Bond

The Night of Morningstar by Peter O'Donnell

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This is a recreational reread for me. I love the pulp novels of Peter O’Donnell and his exciting secret agent, Modesty Blaise, and reread the 13 novels every couple years. Modesty, in this novel, works with her equally competent partner, Willie Garvin, to combat a worldwide organization attempting to take over the world. In the other books, her beginnings as the head of a European crime syndicate is mentioned, but in this story, we watch her early retirement as she and Willie have decided crime […]

Pickle Jars are not Just for Pickles anymore

The Planet in a Pickle Jar by Martin Staney

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The Planet in a Pickle Jar almost has a “part one” and “part two” to it. You start off with the grandchildren of a grandmother saying their grandmother is dull, never laughs or talks until they show up. When they finally visit, they think her house is dull, the grandmother tells long tedious stories and things are boring. Of course, you see the artwork presenting everything as mysterious and boldly colored and overflowing with details. The second part is one day the grandmother is missing, […]

Love, Me

Love, Z by Jessie Sima

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I am not completely familiar with the Robot Z, yet this book is familiar due to the theme. The simple question, “What is love?” is not as easy as Z would have hoped in Jessie Sima’s picture book Love, Z. But a wonderful journey later, Z finds that love might have been closer than they thought at first. A sweet, cozy story about family, friendship, and the real meaning of love. While this would have been a great Valentine’s Day book, it is also a […]

Bitter, Sweet, Love, Family

Hundred Years of Happiness by Thanhha Lai

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I had many emotions and thoughts while reading Hundred Years of Happiness. I was wondering the nationality of the family (you learn Vietnamese) as I was curious where the food came from and where the traditional represented (colors are important to cultures and I was wondering why white was not used).  Then, I would become emotional as I realized this is not really a happy story, but a bittersweet one about the love of a grandchild and grandparents. And where one grandparent, the grandmother, is […]



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