Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“What else is life but a string of outcomes beyond our control?”

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vols. 1-3 by Beth Brower

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This is a wild thing to say, but I’m saying it, so stay with me. This series is Dungeon Crawler Carl for the Jane Austenites. I’m not even finished with it yet and I already know that. It’s the kind of story you read once, probably in a very short time, then immediately go back in for a re-read or five. This story is—aside from having lovable characters and a certain anti-authoritarian bent—nothing like Dungeon Crawler Carl. And yet. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. […]

XOXO Tiffin Academy

The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham

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Spending a year at a prestigious New England boarding school would have been the dream of little high school me. Teaching for a year at a prestigious New England boarding school probably sounds a little bit more like a nightmare. It’s move-in day at Tiffin Academy. As the students return it is also the same day that school rankings are published. Amazingly Tiffin has made a seventeen spot jump to number two in the country. Take that Phillips Exeter! Just as everyone begins getting comfortable […]

You’re like a secret door in the wall. You’re an electrical storm in my spine.

The Paris Match by Kate Clayborn

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It looks like The Paris Match is my first five star review of 2026, but the truth is I have been reading this book over and over the way some people watch Heated Rivalry. I don’t really know how to talk about The Paris Match. It’s so much more than its summary suggests, and if I really dig into the stuff I loved, I’ll spoil it. What I can say is Kate Clayborn has written a book the rewards close reading. I finally figured out […]

A Beautiful, Quiet, Reflective Book

The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten, translated by Alison McCullough

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CW: violent animal death This is a quiet, reflective book with beautiful, emotionally restrained prose that somehow still manages to be gently emotional. Nils Vik wakes up on what he knows will be the last day of his life and goes about his normal daily routine. He is a ferryman in Norway, someone who has spent decades carrying people across a fjord, and on this final day he follows a familiar route while also collecting the dead. These are former ferry passengers he once knew, […]

In case you were wondering, there aren’t really any werewolves in this book.

The Werewolf Principle by Clifford D. Simak

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Quite an interesting little book. And charming, in the way that a lot of 1960s/70s sci-fi is charming—I love the way that people thought the future might be (in this case, a world government, smart houses that take care of humans and that can fly), and also in this case, Simak’s imagination doesn’t really gel with science as we know it. But if you suspend your disbelief, you get a weird little book about a man found frozen in space who turns out to have […]

Unlikable Done Right

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

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Marisa Kashino’s Best Offer Wins features one of my favorite tropes, the unlikable female main character (UFMC). Writing a UFMC is such a difficult balancing act: make her flawed enough to be engagingly frustrating, but not so flawed that the reader can’t quite believe that anyone would be willing to put up with her BS. The Queen of UFMC is of course Amy Dunne from Gone Girl. (Spoilers ahead for Gone Girl in case you want to continue living under that cozy rock.) She is […]



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