Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

B*Witched

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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CBR Bingo: ‘B’ Horror isn’t my usual genre, but it’s October, and I really enjoyed one of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s previous novels (Mexican Gothic), so I figured I would give her latest release, The Bewitching, a try. This is a novel about witches, told over three timelines. Minerva, in 1998, is a Mexican grad student studying horror literature in New England. Her thesis is on her favourite author, Beatrice “Betty” Tremblay, who attended the same college in the 1930s. Minerva gains access to papers via a friend of […]

Our Little Rainbow Warriors

The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata

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The Rainbow Troops (Laskar Pelangi) was first published about 20 years ago in Indonesia, where it soon became an absolute bestseller. The book, very loosely based on Andrea Hirata’s own childhood, is set on Belitong Island, where the people are poor, but the surrounds are rich in tin. Most children in the region struggle to obtain an education, but the young Malay boy Ikal and his friends do have one option open to them; a small Muhammadiya (Islamic) school run by an early teacher, Pak […]

The Good, the Bad and the Horny

Apprentice to the Villain: A Novel by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

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Apprentice to the Villain is the second of four projected Villain novels (#3 is out now) and continues the romance/fantasy of Evie Sage and Trystan Maverine, aka the Villain. At the end of book one, Evie’s world has been turned on its head. Her boss Trystan has been captured by the evil King Benedict and he thinks Evie is dead. Evie and the rest of the crew at Massacre Manor  have to come up with a plan to get the boss back and save the […]

I’m not sure what was true

Almost True by Clarice Lispector

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I am not the reader for Almost True by Clarice Lispector. It did not “grab me” but I know several people will find this amusing and clever. The illustrations are unusual and have a little fun going on but are also not over the top silly. Yet, they are oddly abstract with a realistic touch, Once I realized that it was translated by Benjamin Moser I figured that it was the translation of things that was not being liked by my reading ear. The text […]

A pig needs a knife

Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin

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A few days after I finished the Black Flame novel by Gretchen Felker-Martin, I was trying to describe it to a coworker. I was not doing a good job. I said it was horror and you could see it at a surface level or in a deeper manner. We follow a woman, who is a seriously closeted lesbian, who restores old film. She is used as the “official Jew”  (she is called the “mailroom Jew” when sent to meet a reporter who is deliberately hurtful, […]

Friend Carl might not have liked being a book prop, but I liked this book.

Orphanland by Lauren Fischer

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The story behind the book is better than the book, Orphanland by Lauren Fischer, and it is a good book. Or at least I think so, as it made a cozy memory to be connected to a book with a not so cozy theme. I was going to read it online, but got a finished paperback (after requesting the online book and the author contacting me saying thanks for requesting) from the author. We emailed a little bit as we were talking about the book, […]



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