Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Worth and Expectations

Her Favorite Rebound (Cider Bar Sisters #4) by Jackie Lau

A Very Beery New Year (Cider Bar Sisters #3.5) by Jackie Lau

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Her Favorite Rebound Sierra Wu is thirty-four, divorced, does not want children and is a constant disappointment to her family. They are horrified that she quit her engineering job (that she hated) to run a small greeting card store (that she loves) four years ago. Sierra is used to living a pretty small life, so the last thing she expected was being swept off her feet by Colton Sanders, the billionaire (think Jeff Bezos type). They’ve been together for a year, and despite his reputation […]

Emergency Contact doesn’t quite make the contact with me I’d hoped for

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

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Between going to Disney for a week and changing jobs, it’s been a busy time for me and not much reading has gotten done. But now’s time to get back down to it, starting with Emergency Contact. This was on my to-read list for a while, so when I found it at a clearance price at Books a Million, I couldn’t resist. Emergency Contact is about two characters, Penny and Sam, who’ve gotten some shit deals in their lives and who find one another amidst […]

“Burn it down, Charlie. Burn it all down.”

Firestarter by Stephen King

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Between 1974 and 1984 Stephen King published an astounding 18 books (counting the four novellas published under the name Richard Bachman, later packaged together as The Bachman Books). The sheer output is not the only extraordinary thing. Among those titles are the books most would consider among King’s most iconic: Carrie, ‘salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, The Eyes of the Dragon, The Talisman, Pet Sematary, The Gunslinger, Christine. Next to those iconic works, there are others that are no less great but seem to […]

Chitinous Critters and Cardboard Cutouts

Phantoms by Dean Koontz

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One late afternoon, sisters Jenny and Lisa Paige drive up to Snowfield, CA, a small ski resort village where Jenny works as a doctor. Lisa, her fourteen year old half sister, comes to live with her after the death of their mother. Though Jenny is used to the town being quiet, when she drives through it she notices that the lights are on but nobody’s home (which is, in and of itself, an accurate description of any character in this novel, but I digress). As […]

A tale as old as time

The Women of Troy: A Novel by Pat Barker

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The Women of Troy is the follow up to Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, her imagining of the Trojan War/Iliad from the point of view of the women and girls who saw their city fall and became enslaved to their enemies. The focal point remains Briseis, pregnant with Achilles’ child, with a few chapters from the view of Achilles’ teenaged son Pyrrhus. This novel finds its characters stuck in a sort of limbo; the war is over, the Greeks victorious but unable to […]

Clay’s Ark

Clay's Ark by Octavia Butler

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This is a re-read and still a four-star book for me. Something there is in Octavia Butler books where she invents a wild new world, plays around in it in the most dreary and upsetting ways, never makes me feel too out of sorts, and even includes a lot of uncomfortable sexuality in the books, and they still just remain a joy to read. Not a joy in like….joyful, but deeply satisfying and enjoyable. These four books that comprise the Patternmaster books can definitely be […]



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