Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

There really were too many bare behinds in this

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

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You love him. You hate him. But either way this classic is still here. I realized as I was reading A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein, I do not think I have actually read a Silverstein book cover to cover. Maybe The Giving Tree, but I could not say for sure.  I do know that I have read poems from/had poems read from a few books. And, in fact two that I remember from here, (though mostly the idea of them and not […]

Why has it taken me this long to read this masterpiece?

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

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The country is on the brink of anarchy. Technically, there are still local, state, and federal governments but they aren’t able to handle many if any of the nation’s problems. Unemployment, homelessness, illness, drug abuse are all rampant. Because of these woes, individuals frequently turn to drugs and/or violence to try and solve their problems. But for 18 year old Lauren, her family, and her cul-de-sac, they turn to each other. They have walled off their road and turn to each other for protection and […]

“Evil isn’t a person,” he said. “It’s not a political group either. Or a religion like some people think. Evil is a force. Like gravity. It acts on all of us. We’re all vulnerable to it.”

What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins

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This was a perfectly good book, but it could have been better for me. I broke my no lit-fic rule and put this on my TBR even before the second IRL book club I’m in chose this for later this year. The combination of the book being set in the mystery-adjacent aftermath of a tragedy (a murder-suicide between two teenaged boys), a sixteen year old girl who shows up pregnant afterwards, and the two remaining parents of the dead boys being neighbors just sounded way […]

Sequel-itis

Protect the Prince by Jennifer Estep

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Evie may have killed her cousin and become queen of Bellona, but her troubles are far from over. Morta continues to threaten her kingdom, and now she must make peace with Sully’s father to strengthen themselves against the enemy. There’s a mystery of sorts as Evie must figure out the culprit behind a series of assassination attempts. Using her mysterious powers and her wits, she works to solve the mystery quite quickly, and though I was able to guess the killer ahead of her I […]

It was the worst of times

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

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Fingersmith is award winning historical fiction set in 1862 London and at a country manor known as Briar. Like a Dickens novel, it features thieves, asylums, poor, rich and table turning, but this work also focuses on women, sex, matters of power/agency and the lack thereof.  The story is told in three parts: two from point of view of Sue Trinder, a 17-year-old orphan and fingersmith (thief), and one from point of view of 17-year-old Maud Lilly, who is an orphan and an heiress. Both […]

Let’s go caving with a-holes.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

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On the mining colony world Cassandra V, 22-year-old Gyre Price lies on her qualifications in order to take a dangerous, high-paying job to explore a cave. She is desperate for the money so she can buy her way off-world to locate the mother who abandoned her years before. Her only companion is a voice in her head from her top-side handler, Em. Gyre is fitted into a high-tech suit and has surgery to re-route her bodily functions so that she never needs to remove her […]



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