Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Creepy Christmas Carols

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

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NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (2013) is a horror novel that bears similarity to some of Stephen King’s work, which is probably why it ended up on my to-read list, along with The Passage by Justin Cronin (2010). The antagonist of NOS4A2, Charles Manx, is reminiscent of Pennywise the Clown of King’s IT: both vampirically stay young by kidnapping and feeding upon kids, and both warp happiness into horror, Pennywise with his clown suit and Manx with the trappings of Christmas. His lair, for lack of […]

That is the hardest I have ever had to work to read fiction

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

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Do not start this book if you are looking for a light, fun read. Do not start this book if all you want to do while reading is scan a page and flip the page. Do not start this book if you are uncomfortable with feelings of unexplainable dread. House of Leaves is not an easy read. It took me a full two weeks to finish reading. Not only are there footnotes and footnotes that have footnotes, but the way the words are typed on […]

A loose screw, or screwing ghosts, who’s to say?

The Turn of The Screw by Henry James

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Full disclosure: I was supposed to have read Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw for my AP Language class about 15 years ago, but like many books assigned to me, I forewent the reading and instead drew my knowledge heavily from my studious best friend and Spark Notes. That being said, I am currently quarantined in my parents’ house where a stack of my high school “faux reads” gather dust in the basement. I decided to tackle my abandoned scholastic literary foes — which […]

Started November 12th. Finished January 12th. The breaks in reading were NECESSARY

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

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…but the journey was worth it. This book is brutal. If you are sensitive at all to suffering- be it human, animal, generational, cultural- turn away now and do not look back. Four Blackfeet men engage in a bit of last-minute less-than-legal Elk hunting the weekend before Thanksgiving. What happens that day never really leaves them, but what they left behind comes rocketing back into their lives 10 years later. The 10 years since that day have not been easy; the men are plagued by […]

I know it is 298 days until Halloween but this is a year-round Treat!

The Ghosts Went Floating by Kim Norman

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I am going to say it. I am not ashamed. I almost peed myself laughing at The Ghosts Went Floating. I thought my coworkers would come into the office and think that I had officially finally lost it for good this time. But I did not care! I would just have told them that Kim Norman is a genius! Norman took “The Ants go Marching” song and gave it the most awesome of awesome twists: put that tune to a Halloween theme. I have seen […]

*Insert Always Sunny Duster Comments Here*

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

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Have you ever been approached by a grim-looking man, carrying a naked sword with a blade about ten miles long in his hand, in the middle of the night beneath the stars on the shores of Lake Michigan? Until very recently my answer was a “definitely not”. Now, thanks to crystalclear for sending this book my way during the 2020 Book Exchange, my answer has changed: YES! By proxy, at least. I have been acquainted with the big swordy fella and many other weirds that […]



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