Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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KKK Demon Hunters

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark

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Ring Shout is set in 1915 Georgia, where Maryse Boudreaux and her friends Chef and Sadie work as bootleggers by day, and demon hunters by night. But unlike their K-pop counterparts, this trio of demon hunters is after Ku Kluxes: terrifying, pointy-headed monsters that fill the ranks of the KKK alongside regular (also monstrous) Klansmen. Ku Kluxes feed on hate, and in Jim Crow-era Georgia, there is plenty of that to go around.  But with Chef’s explosives expertise, Sadie’s sharpshooting abilities, and Maryse’s magical sword, […]

I guess my reading vibe this year is slanting towards cozy and comforting

The Last Father-Daughter Dance: A Short Story by Lisa Wingate

Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes 1) by Travis Baldree

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I don’t know if you can call this first book exactly cozy, but it was definitely comforting.  Along with the storyline, there’s something comforting (to me at least) about a short story. There are character arcs, plot twists, and usually everything is tied up by the end. It calms the soul to not have to wait! This book is about a woman reconnecting with her ailing father. Kalista is an Olympian, and her father was a long-time high school coach. He’s scheduled for heart surgery […]

A brilliant (but bloody) blend of history and fantasy

He Who Drowned the World: The Radiant Emperor Duology Book 2 by Shelley Parker-Chan

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This finale to Shelley Parker-Chan’s The Radiant Emperor Duology was outstanding. As with the first book (She Who Became the Sun), Parker-Chan focuses on the political and military machinations of a handful of ambitious individuals, each desperate for power and/or revenge. Parker-Chan has created complex characters who, despite their violent and frequently perverse proclivities, can also occasionally inspire pity. The court intrigues and double crossings had me on the edge of my seat, and the battles — sometimes featuring very hungry ghosts — were harrowing. […]

Be Gay Do Crime

Be Gay Do Crime: Sixteen Stories of Queer Chaos by Molly Llewellyn (editor), Kristel Buckley (editor)

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Once again, I’m a sucker for a good title, and Be Gay Do Crime got me immediately. It’s a short story collection edited by Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley, and I went in assuming that it’d be a series of riots. The name evokes the proud history of queer militancy to me — the anti-normative ethos of “not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you.” That’s mostly not it. Across the 16 stories collected here, there are many flavors of queerness (largely […]

No longer under his grandmother’s table

I Wish I Didn't Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir by Eugene Yelchin

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I enjoy Eugene Yelchin as an author and illustrator. I have read several titles including, The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, Breaking Stalin’s Nose, and The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet! by Carmen Agra Deedy (illustrated by Yelchin). Therefore I was excited about I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This: A Graphic Memoir written and illustrated by Yelchin. I was assuming it was going to be a memoir of his life during the early 1980s, but it […]

When did Frenemies become a word?

Dragon vs. Unicorn: Friends or Frenemies? by P.J. Hoover and Lisa Wiley

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Dragon vs. Unicorn: Friends or Frenemies? by P.J. Hoover and Lisa Wiley (illustrator) might be, if not the first, one of the first or few Choose Your Own Adventures books I have read via an online reader (though it is currently available).  Online reading of a CYOA is not an easy task, unlike this book which is a quick read for the adult and a decent read for the at least five and up (around a young nine) crowd.  Unicorn and Dragon are two friends […]



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