Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Too Many Jonathans, or Too Much Jonathan

Purity by Jonathan Franzen

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Purity ‘Pip’ Tyler is a girl like so many others. It’s 2015, the market has only just begun to convalesce, and she is stuck in a dead-end job with crippling student debt. She is terrible at interpersonal relationships, has managed to alienate most of her friends: she feels like – and for all accounts is – a failure. Her needy mother has never told her who her father is. But then Pip meets Andreas Wolf, Man Who Is Totally Not Julian Assange, and he offers […]

Taking “What If?” A Bit Too Far

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

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Up until meeting her now-fiancé Maxwell (affectionally called Boots), Lola was the definition of a serial monogamist. Unlucky in love – or maybe too lucky but with the wrong people – Lola has a storied past full of men who did her wrong, men she did wrong, and men she simply grew apart from. But all that’s over, now that she and Boots are engaged. Except Lola isn’t quite sure she wants to be engaged. The ring is kind of ugly, she doesn’t really like […]

Book 2 of Romantasy (with dragons)

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

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Iron Flame (2023) by Rebecca Yarros is the second book in the Empyrean Series. I recently read the first book, Fourth Wing, and found it pretty entertaining. It felt like a combination of Fifty Shades of Grey and The Hunger Games–but with dragons. The second book has a similar feel, but was not quite as good as the first. There will probably be spoilers ahead, so take care. Fourth Wing ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I was eager to start the second book and find out what was […]

The lengths two girls will take to go to school 

Yenebi's Drive to School by Sendy Santamaria

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Yenebi’s Drive to School by Sendy Santamaria is about Yenebi, her sister Melanie, and mom drive to school every morning across the US-Mexico border. The end. Except it isn’t. You would not think that a trip to school would be as full as it is for Yenebi, but it is. It is wildly adventurous.  Waking at four in the morning to get ready for the drive. Beating on if it will take two or three hours to get there. Wait? Two to three HOURS? You […]

Who knew a book with “bleak” in the title could be so much fun? (with helpful charts!)

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

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Bleak House has been brooding on my TBR list for years because, even though I’m a long-time Dickens fan, I was intimidated by the length and by what I perceived would be a weighty novel. I’m ecstatic that I overcame my hesitance, because this novel was more fun than a mariachi band on a roller coaster. Sure, about 9 people die, but you can’t make gruel without smashing a few oats, right? There are so many characters that the death toll amounts to maybe 12%, and […]

“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.” –Montesquieu

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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I picked up Chain-Gang All-Stars (2023) by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah because it was on a bunch of year-end lists and sounded interesting. In this book, American prisoners who are part of the CAPE program travel to different arenas around the country competing in death matches. The people who enjoy and/or profit from this program defend it because the prisoners are murderers themselves, and it was something the prisoners signed up for. It is gory and violent and makes some pointed commentary on America’s justice system and imprisonment. […]



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