Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Why were there 6 chapters worth of exposition?

The Color of My Words by Lynn Joseph

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On the subject of books I read for school, I had to read this one for Spanish class (in Spanish), and it was definitely my least favorite book I’ve had to read for school this year. The Color of My Words tells the story of Ana Rosa, an 11 or 12 year old girl in the Dominican Republic soon after Trujillo’s dictatorship who dreams of being an author. However, due to the lingering political turmoils, it isn’t safe to write. Thought the book, Ana Rosa […]

Was there a page max or something?

The Removed by Brandon Hobson

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This is another one that I read for my book club, and I might or might not have picked it up otherwise. The synopsis makes it seem like it does stray too far from the things I usually read, but the content was a little out there for me. The Removed follows a dysfunctional family comprised of Maria, the mother who struggles to manage the family, Earnest, the father, who has Alzheimer’s, Edgar, the son, a drug addict who fled home years ago, and Sonja, […]

Some Actually Recommended Romances

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez

Enemies With Benefits by Roxie Noir

Dear Grumpy Boss by Julia Wolf

Bananapants by Penny Reid

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I’m still reading romance novels on my kindle, and when people ask me what I recommend, it’s always Paul Murray or Ted Chiang or “Oh, I’ve just reread Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved.”  I have got to stop being ashamed of reading them, though, because some of the most fun I’ve had this year has been reading romances. This is by no means a comprehensive list of the top 4 romance novels I’ve read this year – it’s just the top 4 most recently read […]

2024 Was The Year Of The Hockey Novel

Slap Shot by Kat Mizera

Ice Breaker by Hanna Grace

The Boyfriend Goal by Lauren Blakely

Thoroughly Pucked by Lauren Blakely

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There are SO MANY hockey romances around, you guys!!  I read a random sampling of them over the course of the year.  Please, allow my sacrifice to guide you, as you choose more wisely than I did. Slap Shot was a fun if forgettable romance.  First in the series, but the subsequent novels were, according to my notes, “too expensive to be worth it.”  My thumbnails are occasionally rude like that. Juliet heads to a hockey match, and gets hit in the head by a […]

“…the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

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My husband and I were married in 2022. We decided to both read a book in honor of our anniversary. We would pick the book together, finding something that reminded us of the past year. So far we’ve picked books based on places that we’ve traveled. The first year we had vacationed in Florida, and we picked Swamplandia!. It was well written and memorable, but it was also weird and disturbing. This year, we were lucky enough to go to Italy, and after some google searches, […]

Are you reading Ben Stevenson yet?

Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret by Benjamin Stevenson

Fool Me Twice: Two Twisty Mysteries by Benjamin Stevenson

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I’ve reviewed a couple of Ben Stevenson’s books in the past, and I remain a shameless devotee of his writing.  These two represent the highs and the lows of it, but both remain part of my top twenty books for the year. Fool Me Twice took me back to my childhood.  It can be read from either side – flip the book and start a new story – and is comprised of two novella-length stories. The first story, Find Us, is a pretty creepy kidnapping […]



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