Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Week for Pop Culture Exploration of Fascist Themes

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

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My library reservation for Suzanne Collins’ Sunrise on the Reaping, the lastest book in her Hunger Games collection, finally came in two days after I finished watching the remarkable second season of Andor. I have really enjoyed and thought about Collins’ novels over the years, so I knew what I was getting into, but that was a weighty few days of pop culture consumption. Sunrise on the Reaping takes the reader back to the 50th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell we first heard about in […]

Crime Hard

Lucky by Marissa Stapley

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If I had a nickel for every book I’ve read recently that also has Anya Taylor-Joy starring in an upcoming adaptation, I’d have two nickels which is not a lot but it’s still weird that it happened twice. Lucky Armstrong is having both the best and worst day of her life. She and her boyfriend Cary have pulled off a scam that will allow them to finally run off to live the life of luxury in the Caribbean that they’ve been working towards. Except Cary […]

Frank Novel about Sex, Class, Nature, and Industrial Decay

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

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Give me the body. I believe the life of the body is a greater reality than the life of the mind: when the body is really wakened to life. D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, published in 1928, is an explicit account of married Lady Connie Chatterley and her groundskeeper lover, Oliver Mellors. Mellors’s name is almost never used in the book; he is simply the groundskeeper, even in Connie’s mind. Connie is married to Clifford Chatterley, who was paralyzed below the waist in World War […]

The Good Stuff.

Peter and Wendy/ Margaret Ogilvy by J. M. Berrie

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No pic, sorry!  Old book. This volume, which I picked up in an estate sale somewhere, is an old one, published in 1913.  It features an account of the author’s mother, Margaret Ogilvy (which was written in 1896), as well as the original version of Peter Pan.  As far as the former goes, we meet his mum as a widowed Scot with a devious turn of mind and not a care in the world as to what anyone thinks of her.  That was fun. But […]

Invading plants from outer space

Overgrowth by Mira Grant

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Seanan McGuire is an incredibly prolific writer – I tend to prefer the things she publishes under Seanan McGuire but I still check out her Mira Grant work. Under that pen name, I like her Newsflesh series (zombies) and her mermaid novellas most. This novel is my least favorite thing I have ever read by Seanan McGuire. I wasn’t sure about the premise even going in but I figured Grant/McGuire would have an interesting take. It started strong, beginning with the horror of a little girl’s […]

I’ve got mixed feelings about this one

Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus

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Lessons in Chemistry is a novel of extremes. It details horrible loss and heartbreak, but it also delivers moments of humor. Its main female character suffers misogyny, abuse, and  debasement, but she also finds the courage to fight back tirelessly and valiantly not just for herself but for others. It’s generally an enjoyable read, but my overall impression is that it was rather fantastical. Despite every bad thing in the world happening, somehow our unlikely downtrodden protagonist perseveres. Nothing wrong with that, but given that […]



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