Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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What more does one need?

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by Charlie Fletcher

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Yes, I read another post-apocalyptic fiction! No, I’m NOT sorry! This story is about Griz, a teen who lives on a small island in the Hebrides. Griz is alone except for a mum, a dad, sisters, and two beloved dogs, Jess and Jip. They are alone because they live in the years following The Gelding, an event which saw birth rates across the planet plummet and most of humanity perish (either with a whimper or a bang, depending on which outgoing philosophy the dying chose). […]

Breaking up is hard to do

Change of Plans by Sarah Dessen

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026. Finley is graduating from high school, and is worried about several weeks away from her charismatic boyfriend, Colin, their friend group and her entire social circle. Most of all, she would have wanted to join Colin and his family on a Disney cruise, but her distant mother, Catherine (her father has custody and she only sees her Mum a few times […]

I Would Not Survive in 1855…And I Wouldn’t Want To

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

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We meet bright, but cold Natalie Heller as she goes off to Harvard. Instead of experiencing the world, making friends and learning, the experience shows her that what she knows is “right” and that the world is wicked. She meets a man, a man who’s family is wealthy and heavily connected to politics and she sees in him someone she can mold and make the perfect husband. They quickly marry and things immediately go downhill. Natalie loathes her husband. He has no ambition, he wants […]

Who Made Us Monsters? Narrative Psychology and The Female Jewish Gothic

Odessa by Gabrielle Sher

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Gabrielle Sher’s Odessa started from her doctoral dissertation titled “Who Made Us Monsters? Narrative Psychology and The Female Jewish Gothic.” I assume it evolved a lot to go from academic writing to horror novel, but I think the question was answered. The book doesn’t explain much. It doesn’t have a historic context note, there are no explanations or translations for the many words that I believe are Yiddish. This works because Sher is very good at giving you enough context to figure. For example, you […]

Painfully Unfunny

Et Tu, Babe by Mark Leyner

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This is going to be short and to the point. I HATED Mark Leyner’s Et Tu, Babe. I had a friend a long time ago who loved Leyner and the title of the book cracked me up. Well, the title was the first and last thing to give me even a twitch of amusement. There isn’t really a plot, per se, just strings of absurd situations and painfully unfunny humor. It’s meant to be some kind of absurdist post-modern take on fame and culture, but […]

“I didn’t need any help getting angry, I was great at that on my own.”

Platform Decay by Martha Wells

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Monthly Keyword 26: Decay Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026. Murderbot (who has installed a mental health module now, and keeps doing Emotion checks on itself) is on a rescue mission on a large artificial planet controlled mostly by Barish-Estranza. What starts out as needing to find and escort three people from the hostile territory becomes a lot more complicated when Murderbot is forced to agree to locate […]



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