Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Stranger King

Revival by Stephen King

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A six-year-old boy playing with his toy soldiers in the front yard is interrupted by a visitor, the new minister at the family church. The Rev. Charles Jacobs is bright and energetic, with his pretty wife and young son completing a picture-perfect family. The six-year-old, Jamie Morton, will become enthralled by Jacobs and his twin passions, for God and electricity. Conducting youth service in the church basement, Rev. Jacobs spices up his scripture lessons with his various electrical toys and experiments, including a toy Jesus […]

A disappointing end to a promising series

The Cthulhu Casebooks - Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

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Endings are always difficult. Wrapping up a series based on someone else’s original work, doubly so (a fact all Game of Thrones fans learned the hard way this year). This book concludes Lovegrove’s trilogy of placing Holmes into a Lovecraftian universe and the results are not that great. The fist difficulty is with the source material. Doyle only returned to Holmes reluctantly, and the stories of Holmes towards the end did not have the same energy or enthusiasm as the earlier works. Yes, Lovegrove incorporates […]

Horrors of the Road

Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink

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I heard about Alice Isn’t Dead in a review, I think maybe NPR. It sounded interesting so I picked it up. What I noticed quickly but hadn’t realized at first is that the author, Joseph Fink, is one of the Welcome to Night Vale guys; this tells you a lot about the tone and general type of story to expect if you’re familiar with either the podcast (I am not) or the first novel (which I’ve read). The novel was more openly horror than I […]

Where will you be when the world ends? (in a Taco Bell?)(Seems likely!)

Apocalypse Taco by Hale, Nathan

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Parents, have you ever thought to yourself, “When will I be able to share my love of bizarre, gory sci-fi horror b-movies with my child?” Has your kid ever picked up David Lubar’s “Campfire Weenies” series and said, “Man, it just ISN’T WEIRD ENOUGH!”  Does your tween love Stranger Things but wish it had a lot more “WHAT THE FUCK?” My friends, do I have the book for you! I’m a huge fan of Nathan Hale’s “Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales” series, which is a graphic […]

Dreamcatcher meets Lord of the Flies

The Troop by Nick Cutter

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Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I’ll go and eat worms! Big fat juicy ones. Eensie weensy squeensy ones. See how they wiggle and squirm! I will never again see that rhyme the same way. This book is bloody disgusting. A foul, body-horror, visceral experience usually reserved for John Carpenter movies. I was utterly unprepared to be so repulsed by the mere written word. The story centers on a troop of five 14 year old boy-scouts, their honourable scoutmaster, and a (very very […]

Wonderful Merge of YA, Fantasy, & Horror

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

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I don’t even know what to say. This book will break your heart, make you shudder in fright, and have you widening your eyes over how Connolly changes up some of our favorite fairy tales and myths. I thought this book was great from beginning to end and I worried throughout about would happen to David (our young protagonist). The book’s writing and flow were exceptional though in the end I wanted more. It felt like the book ended too soon. “The Book of Lost […]



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