Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Well now I am a romance reader

Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean

Brazen and the Beast by Sarah MacLean

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean

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In a previous Cannonball Read post I referenced not reading romance. I need to amend that post–I used to not read romance; now it is almost all I read. I’ve been puzzling through why, and I’ve settled on the idea that romance is very formulaic. This is usually considered a defect in literature, but I’d argue that formulas exist for a reason (Shakespeare and Austen are formulaic), and at this point in the pandemic, the a work of television, film, or literature that works well […]

A worthy addition to the post-apocalyptic YA canon

The Pox Ward by Kendra Griffin

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Reading a book about a pandemic during a pandemic can be both rewarding and somewhat claustrophobic. On the one hand, you pick up on certain nuances you may have missed, or you make connections you wouldn’t have otherwise. When in the summer of 2020 I read Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers, set in the gay community during the early days of the AIDS crisis, I reflected on how I shared with the protagonist, to some extent, the hyper-awareness of my body and the terror of a positive […]

A series I am sad to see go.

The Desolation of Devil's Acre by Ransom Riggs

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     “Stay safe, peculiar folk, it’s weird out there. And not in a good way.” Caul is back. And once again all of peculiardom is in danger. Loops are being raided and destroyed all over the world, sending refugee peculiars flooding into Devil’s Acre. But things in the acre are more than a little weird as it beings to rain  blood, bones, and ash. Noor and Jacob have no idea how they survived V’s loop and ended up back on Abe Portman’s front porch, […]

A more than sufficient ending.

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

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“I understand that you’ve lost something— a lot of things— but you’re still the same person. I know, because I loved you then, and I love you now, and I know that’s not enough to make you happy— to make anyone happy— but you’re the same person, Simon. You’re still you.” ”It’s enough,” he finally grumbles. ”What is,” I whisper. ”The fact that you love me. It does make me happy.” The group is back from their wild adventure in America and they are all […]

The stench is right, this book STINKS!

The Stench of Honolulu by Jack Handey

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“The jungle grew darker and more mysterious. Bugs seemed buggier, and the trees almost seemed alive. The sun was like a blazing ball of fire in the sky. Strange little birds hovered over the flowers, stabbing them with their long, pointed beaks. Sinister rock formations appeared on shore and even reached up out of the water. I guess that’s where Hawaii got its famous nickname, “Land of a Thousand Nightmares.”  The narrator is cajoled by his friend Don into taking a trip to Hawaii. While […]

Unearthing History

In the Memory of the Forest: A Novel by Charles T. Powers

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Cbr13bingo Landscape, bingo #6 and #7; Cannonball! In the Memory of the Forest was published in 1997, shortly after author Charles T. Powers died. This was his one and only novel, having spent his career as a journalist covering Eastern Europe for the LA Times. I remember reading this novel after it came out and thinking it was amazing, but it has been almost 25 years. Does the novel stand up? Yes, it does. In the Memory of the Forest is a story about Poland’s […]



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