Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Novel About Race, Identity, and Satire

Erasure by Percival Everett

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I learned about this novel when the movie American Fiction came out (which I’m hoping to see this weekend). It’s striking and sad how relevant this 23-year-old book still is when it comes to race and racial stereotypes. Percival Everett provides a sharp critique of race. It’s biting and funny and depressing and tragic. Told through journal entries, it follows Thelonious (Monk) Ellison during a time when he is facing dramatic changes in his family and has chosen to write a book intended to be […]

I’m pretty sure Jane Austen would’ve mocked this book relentlessly. 

Miss Austen by Gill Hornby

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1840s England. Cassandra Austen, professional spinster and sister-of, arrives at the home of a relative who has just lost her father, and because said father was a parson, she is forced to vacate the house in which she’s been living to make room for the new guy. The relative, Eliza, is not thrilled to see Cassandra, but Cassandra doesn’t care: her sole mission is to find the letters that her sister Jane once sent, to protect her reputation and keep her secrets. **Spoilers herein** Spoiler […]

“Beggin’ yer pardon, m’lady, but these pews are hard as a hangman’s heart and narrow as a rat’s bunghole.”

A Notorious Countess Confesses by Julie Anne Long

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The second weakest entry in the Pennyroyal Green series and a damned shame. Plot: The uncannily handsome and possibly slightly supernatural vicar introduced a few books ago, Adam, is drowning a little under the relentless adoration of his parishioners. This is his first time taking on such a solemn role and while he takes it exceptionally seriously, he feels woefully inadequate. His life is then further complicated by the arrival of a new resident to Pennyroyal Green, Eve, or as she is known in the […]

Faith and sadness

The Good for Nothing Puddle: Finding Hope When You're Stuck in Sadness by Jana Jackson

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The Good for Nothing Puddle: Finding Hope When You’re Stuck in Sadness is actually an enjoyable story that shows depression, sadness, and grief in an unusually positive light without downplaying, ignoring or shaming it. However, the inclusion of God might turn some readers off as that part is an important part to the wrapping up of things and the message that the author wants to give. With that being said, I did enjoy the process of our main character figuring out that the puddle she […]

Dice & Deathtraps is not D&D but you know it’s D&D

The Last Session Vol. 1 by Jasmine Walls

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Have you ever played a Dungeons & Dragons game or a D&D like game? Have you had envy and/or jealousy of a friend’s friend/girlfriend/boyfriend/partner? Are you not a fan of change; even good changes? Are you queer? Do you like comics/graphic novels? Do you like stories about things like that in graphic novel format? Then this is the book for you.  For the most part, in The Last Session Vol. 1 by Jasmine Walls, Dozerdraws (Illustrator), and Micah Myers (Letterer), the story is familiar. The […]

“To me, the allure of history lay in the minutiae of life long ago, the untold secrets of ordinary people.”

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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A friend loaned me this book and I dove in and read it in two days, tackling the first 13 chapters in one go: highly readable, and a breeze to get through. That said, I know that reading this book will be relegated to the pantheon of things I forgot I have read two months from now. I was quite surprised to learn it was a Goodreads nominee for Best Debut Novel and Best Historical Fiction because I wouldn’t have given it such high praise. […]



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