Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“People always say that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but honestly, people should try solving murders more often.”

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

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CBR18 Bingo: Joker – Vera is a wild card in the investigation around Malcolm’s murder, and shakes up the lives of the suspects out of the blue. After a dead man is found in Vera Wong’s teahouse, being rather unimpressed by the police’s efforts, Vera decides to investigate the death herself. Unfortunately, she finds herself liking all her murder suspects a little too much. A word to the wise: Don’t read this book while hungry. Vera cooks up veritable feasts throughout the book, and the […]

Being a ghost isn’t that different to being a war photographer. Long periods of boredom interspersed with short bursts of terror.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

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Malinda (Maali) Almeida is dead. He’s just taking his sweet time working it out. No, he’s not still hallucinating from some “silly pills” a friend might have slipped him; he is well and truly dead, and he has no idea how that came to pass? Maali is—or was—the son of a Sinhalese father and a Burgher mother. A closeted gay man with a gambling problem, he was also a photographer who served many masters during the political upheaval of 1980s Sri Lanka. As a man […]

Unextreme Utena

Revolutionary Girl Utena by Chiho Saito

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CBR18 Bingo – Justice: it’s about a girl who fights for what she believes is just, instead of just being a normal girl who doesn’t need to duel. Because it’s not normal (or just) for middle school girls to duel for their life all the goddamn time. Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of my favorite animes and I had no interest in ever reading the manga because I was not interested in the story without all the things that the manga cut. That all changed […]

a classic revisited

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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CBR Bingo: Summer, because this book is all about the summer Dill came There was a time when I read this book pretty consistently, in bits and pieces or all at once (hi, my name is Mythili and I am a compulsive re-reader). It was also almost always the same copy, the lavender colored cover softback that we all bought when we read TKAM in 8th grade. Something about the cadence of the plot, the beats, the call backs, the overall arc, the gentle humor–it’s […]

What’s so bad about expressing enthusiasm?

The Point! by Nasser Hussain

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The Point! by Nasser Hussain due early September 2026;  mostly “read” via an online reader copy. (My rating is an average of my feelings on the book, so actually it is a 2.5) After writing a draft of this review I read it again via a phyical finished copy. Didn’t change my mind, yet I just got a bigger giggle out of it. Also I read the publisher review for it and found the first line interesting. Which, I am glad I did not read […]

How Edith Wharton was ahead of her time.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

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I’ve been trying to read more of my physical books, especially older ones purchased decades ago at warehouse sales, secondhand bookstores (which feel like dying business in my part of the world), and from the lovely global community that was BookMooch. The Age of Innocence was one purchased from a Penguin warehouse sale, and its cover is just so lovely (see this link). It’s 1870s, and Newland Archer is rich, educated, and a little bored, so he decides marriage is a good way to not […]



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