Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Sometimes I think,” she said slowly, “that if a man were to spend a day being a woman in America, he wouldn’t make it past noon.”

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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CBR Bingo – On the Air This book came highly recommended by a few people who have similar reading sensibilities as me, so I went into it presuming I would like it, and I was not wrong. However, bit of a quick disclaimer: I was shaken up at the start of the book because in this instance, judging the book by its cover will leave you on uneven footing as you get your book legs (I’m workshopping it a la “sea legs.” You heard it […]

Yes, THAT Vampire Series

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

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It’s okay to admit it – you have an opinion about the Twilight series, just like everyone else on Earth. Whether you love it or hate it, you’ve probably spent longer than you’d like to thinking about the folks up in Forks. I resisted the pull of these horny teenage vampires for years before finally giving in to my girlfriend’s plea to watch the movies with her. It only took thirty minutes of Kristen Stewart looking bored and Robert Pattinson looking constipated to make me […]

“He was the orphan of his former happiness.”

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

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This novel is longlisted for the Booker prize, which is why I requested it from the library some time ago. I knew it was about a retired Irish police officer who receives a call from former colleagues regarding a previous case, which in turn dredges up a variety of emotional scars. That sounded open ended enough, perhaps like a Tana French novel, and I often enjoy thriller-adjacent novels set in Ireland – and from the cover and other vague descriptions, it sounded just dreamy enough. […]

“My quicksilver thread back to all the older versions of me.”

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

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Look at that gorgeous cover – ignore the Read with Jenna emblem (although, TBH, Jenna has decent taste in books). Those colors, that tree full of wild branches – these evoke the almost restless experience of the three generations of Tran women that populate this novel. The house depicted on the cover looks tiny, but the novel makes clear that the home these women inhabit in Florida was anything but small. Theirs is a verifiable mansion – albeit one in shabby conditions, full of too […]

Constructive Criticism

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

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CBR 15 Bingo – You Are Here: The setting is incredibly self-contained, with nearly all of the action taking place in the same isolated house on a beach. After Emma leaves a negative review on a self-published book, she discovers that some authors take such things very, very personally. I picked up this book because it amused me that someone would take the unfortunately true tales of authors coming after readers who’ve left negative reviews on their books (generally online, but at least in one case physically) and write […]

“If an old story is enough to scare people away, then the whole world should scare them.”

After Dark with Roxie Clark by Brooke Lauren Davis

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CBR 15 Bingo – Adulthood: This YA book is a coming-of-age story for Roxie and Skylar, who must grapple with the difficult themes of guilt and closure before they can move past a massive tragedy. A year after Roxie’s sister’s boyfriend is found brutally murdered on the outskirts of town, an unexpected discovery sends Skylar on a frenetic search for the killer, heedless of who might get hurt in the process. This is a fitting read for spooky season – a family curse? A ghost […]



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