Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Come for the cats, stay for … also the cats

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett

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Like many other Cannonballers, I was familiar with Heather Fawcett because of the Emily Wilde novels, so when I saw her next novel was going to involve a magical cat shelter, I was in, even though I hadn’t enjoyed the third Emily Wilde novel as much. Overall, I had a really fun time with this but it really was primarily due to the cats and the cat shelter, and I actually would have enjoyed even more cats, and day to day life at the shelter. […]

“…there are two things I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine.”

Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki

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I learned about this book and its author from a recent Guardian interview. In it, Asako Yuzuki reveals that when she wrote both Butter and her novel Hooked, (English translation due out this month), she was very angry, especially about sexism and fat shaming in Japan. While Yuzuki’s books have been very popular in Japan and around the world, they have also been criticized in Japan for being too feminist. I found this novel to be a real eye opener. While I had been aware […]

Prince? Assassin? Both?

The Boy Wonder by Juni Ba, Chris O'Halloran, Aditya Bidikar

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When I learned that Dick Grayson was only one of several Robins I was probably in my thirties. How could this be? I mean Bruce Wayne stayed the same, why didn’t Robin? Did he really need to be Nightwing? Red Hood? Red Robin? What does this prove?  Honestly, I don’t know if it has to prove anything, but in Juni Ba, Chris O’Halloran, Aditya Bidikar (and others) The Boy Wonder they collected some of the stories that focus on the newest addition the SuperHero of […]

Riff in the Reef

Search for the Silver Shell: A Branches Book (Coral Keepers #1) by Robin Yardi and Paul Kellam

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The young chapter book, Search for the Silver Shell: A Branches Book (Coral Keepers #1) by Robin Yardi and Paul Kellam (illustrator) fell a little short for me as an adult reader. But the aged 6 to 9 reader will find the fantasy and friendship elements exciting and fun.  It is a part fantasy, part mystery, and (mostly) adventure. This is a new series that feels both “old school” and modern with the diverse characters, the type of freedom the children have and keeps the […]

One of the books from the “nope, not going to read, well maybe I will…” list

Ride / Đạp Xe by Bao Phi and Thi Bui

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Most of the time if I decide to read a book after thinking I won’t read it, I end up liking it. Usually a lot, too. And that is the case with Ride / Đạp Xe by Bao Phi and illustrator Thi Bui. It turned out to be more fun, interesting and more enjoyably clever than I had imagined.  The overall theme is learning to ride a bike. Of course, that means falls and frustration, but the father and mother of the story keep patient […]

Sitting with Jane Eyre, Again

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

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I have read and reread Jane Eyre many times in my life. As a child, teenager, young woman. This time the book invited me to reread her while I was on a trip to London. I was sitting in what felt to me (40 something somewhat dowdy professor-lady) like an impossibly cool art/bar/vibey space in Peckham that thankfully had bookshelves with used books available to read. With a glass of wine I spotted Jane Eyre, scooped her up, and found a spot in a corner […]



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