Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Abstract reading

Kaleidoscope by Brian Selznick

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Kaleidoscope is classic Brian Selznick with the illustrations. It is busy, crowded, soft, heavy, black and white, surreal and realistic. However, the story is not what I expect from Selznick. It is abstract. Several stories are contained into three parts: Morning, Afternoon and Evening. All of these stories feel as if they should be connected, but none actually seem to be actually connected. Or are they? There are images that show up in more than one story (the boys breaking into a place and burning […]

Welcome to the Creep Factor

Hide and Don’t Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories by Anica Mrose Rissi

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I stole this from another Goodreads reviewer: “Carolina Godina’s drawings will augment the creepiness of the text” (thank you Michelle Glatt). And I agree. Hide and Don’t Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories is creepy. It is spooky. It is weird. It is wild. It is horror at its best and worse. I am an adult (in age if not actions) and I was spooked out! I got chills. I thought some of the stories were downright gross. And I was amazed at the strength […]

Endless Halloween Not-So-Much-Fun

The Halloween Moon by Joseph Fink

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This weekend my goal was to read five books. I only got to two, but at least they were the Halloween ones. One of those was The Halloween Moon by Joseph Fink. It seemed like it was going to be a strong, semi-spooky Halloween romp. Some creepy trick-or-treaters, a little bit of the “you’re too old to go out trick-or-treating” and maybe I don’t know, a monster chasing them, but it is really just a bad dream. It was that. And not like that. I […]

“We don’t live in a series of plot points. We should be thankful for that. We should realize how lucky we are.” #CBRBINGO – Home

How Lucky by Will Leitch

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I was a bit nervous for this one! We’ve got a middle-aged white guy writing from the POV of a protagonist with a pretty specific disability (SMA, a degenerative disease*) that he doesn’t share, and I wasn’t familiar with Leitch as a writer, but this was the only BOTM the month it came out that interested me, so I took a chance, and I’m glad I did! I thought the whole thing was very sensitively done, and I thought Daniel ended up being a great […]

“And so I made the decision to change. It might seem like change was impossible, given my nature and my age, but I understood exactly what there was to lose. It was chemistry all over again. The point wasn’t whether or not I liked it. The point was it had to be done.”

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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In one word: Bummer Cannonball Read Bingo: People I haven’t read any Ann Patchett previously; I could have sworn that I read Bel Canto but Goodreads shows it is in my “to read,” and I consider it a better history-keeper than my memory. I’m a big sucker for a book with accolades, so the “Pultizer finalist” sticker on the cover had my heart. I picked it up as it was the monthly selection of my library book club. In my estimation, this is both a […]

“In the clear and steady gleam of electric lights, superstition turns to foolishness; in the crucible of the combustion engine, false beliefs are burned away.” (Bingos #9 & 10)

Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite by Zoraida Cordova & Natalie Parker (editors)

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My Halloween read this year is this collection of new vampire tales edited by the team of Zoraida Cordova and Natalie Parker. I enjoy vampire stores because they offer so many different views onto the human condition, if you go looking for them. In Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite Cordova and Parker, along with the assembled authors, take the time to dig in and explore these angles – with postscripts by Cordova and Parker after each story. Let’s handle individual stories in […]



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