Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

If I Had Your Face–Did Not Finish at 19 percent

If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha

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I have no patience anymore for books I am not enjoying. I have tried to finish this book the past two weeks and finally said forget it this afternoon. I just can’t get into this no matter how hard I try. My mind wanders. I don’t know if it’s the subject (following four young women in Korea who are very focused on their physical appearance) and the fact that seems to be the only plot. I just don’t know what I am supposed to be […]

Interesting plot rather let down by stock characters

Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts

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About a year or so ago, I bought a few of Nora Roberts’ romantic thrillers, but only found this one this week after getting Katee Robert’s Dark Olympus titles through Apple Books (normally I read ebooks via Kindle). The Nora Roberts formula seems to be: throw two characters with traumatic or difficult pasts together in a small town setting, and have them resolve some of their past issues through dealing with a current threat. In previous titles, it’s been the nominal hero disregarding the heroine’s […]

Obsession Is Not Love, Says Local Woman in Dystopian Setting

Anna by Sammy HK Smith

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A woman has survived alone in the aftermath of the apocalypse for years, but when she is taken captive by a sadistic man her life undergoes a much more personal upheaval. The premise of this book is gut-wrenching. In the dystopian wasteland that the world has become after a series of wars and natural disasters, the protagonist has managed to survive on her own, but a moment’s inattention leads to her being captured by a man. This man becomes obsessed with her, keeping her as […]

Sliding Wars

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

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Lionel Shriver is never afraid to get down into the muck of humanity and ask the hard questions. Weight gain, overpopulation, school shootings, exercise addiction – every book I’ve read of hers has conjured up strong and uncomfortable emotions. Yet I found The Post-Birthday World to be uncomfortable in a slightly different way, as it examines a quieter and more domestic question of ‘what if?’. The protagonist of this tale, Irina, is a 40-something USA expat living with her long-term partner in London. She is […]

I’m still recuperating from The Wheel of Time

The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald

The Drowning Pool by Ross Macdonald

The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips

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I’ve ordered these reviews exactly opposite from the order in which I read them, just to make things slightly more confusing. The Moving Target I’m trying to review this book, but the plot has intermingled in my brain with that of The Drowning Pool. They are virtually indistinguishable from one another. It also doesn’t help that I finished this book about two weeks ago. I typically listen to audiobooks at work, but I’ve gotten kind of obsessed with the podcast Knowledge Fight, which critically examines […]

Contemporary Eros and Psyche – the hitman and the influencer

Electric Idol by Katee Robert

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Psyche Demetriou wishes her mother would stop trying to push her at the most powerful men in Olympus to arrange a solid business alliance. She’s used to pretending to be shallow and vain, as well as deaf to all the voices who try to tear her down for her social position or body shape. She misses the quiet life before her mother became hugely powerful and sees the good in everyone, to the point where she spends time patching up dangerous hitman Eros at a […]



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