Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Delightful Diversion

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming

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See what had happened was I woke up with a migraine. A real doozy of a skull-splitter. And there I was, in bed with medicines and comfort objects and drawn curtains and agony. Days like this I can’t watch tv, can’t do much of anything besides lie still and quiet and wait for sleep or sweet release of death. I open my kindle, throw it in to dark mode, bump up the text size until the words aren’t blurry and hope to find a story […]

Last Defender of Camelot – one of Zelazny’s best

Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny

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After finishing a book I really hated, I needed to cleanse my palate, so to speak. The song Guinevere from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young came on and I realized it had been a while since I had re-read The Last Defender of Camelot. It does not disappoint. Is the style a bit dated? Sure. Are there some problematic passages in “Damnation Alley”? Without question, especially the Nazi ones and the handling of female characters in that story (one reason why this received 4 stars […]

A classic twist

The Runaway Dosa by Suma Subramaniam

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“The more you eat, the more you crave! You can’t catch me, no matter how brave!” In another review I mentioned that I like folk tales, though if one is retold just to retell it by adding a few diverse elements, but keep the rest, I am not really a fan. However, The Runaway Dosa showed me that might not always be the case. Suma Subramaniam took The Gingerbread Man story, but added an Indian twist that pays tribute to the old and new. Based […]

The journey back home

Frontera by Julio Anta

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When I first picked up the reader copy of Frontera, even having seen it advertised in multiple newsletters and as an online reader copy, I only noticed the kid on the front cover. I missed the ghost figure in the back. The colors of this cover I am assuming are meant to represent the desert our narrator is traveling through, but it washes out the man in the background. However, this is an interesting design choice as this character is an interesting piece of the […]

“It’s the echo she wants more than the sound.”

Tides by Sara Freeman

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This debut from Canadian Sara Freeman has been compared to writers like Jenny Offill, and I understand that comparison. This book is the type of novel you can devour in one or two sittings. There are no chapters, simply brief paragraph after paragraph, often only one, perhaps two, on a page. Despite the brevity, the prose is dense. While it can, and inevitably will be read quickly, the material itself is far more sticky. Some elements of her writing had far more in common with […]

Not with a bang, but a whimper

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

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One of the most frightening things about the idea of a home invasion is the vast unknown of what the intruders want. Why would they come into your home – are the seeking violence? Money? Revenge? If our safety can be so easily upturned, we yearn desperately to be able to compartmentalize and thus counter-attack – what can we offer to restore our equilibrium? In Paul Tremblay’s version of a home-invasion, the reader is invited to consider these questions along with the characters. Would we offer […]



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