Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


From a Hawk Tuah Boy Again

The Change by K. A. Applegate

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How many Hawk Tuah jokes do I get to make for this reading challenge? Anyway, Book 13 of the Animorphs is narrated by Tobias, our boy who accidentally stayed in his hawk morph too long, and is now permanently stuck in a hawk’s body. It has its ups and downs, and lately he’s really been missing his human form, and feeling like he is a useless member of the Animorphs because he can’t morph. He meets a pair of Hork-Bajir, dinosaur-like aliens who make up […]

Nightmares of the Fourth Reich

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

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Without a doubt, the best thing I’ve read so far this year. Quarter of the way through and not much comes close. As I’ve said many times, I don’t like dystopias that lean too hard into the dystopic-aspect. I like them with the axis of earth just tilted slightly; looking at reality through a cracked mirror. In other words, take scary parts of society and bend them a little to suit your story. Laila Lalami more than delivers that here. What’s frightening about The Dream Hotel is […]

“The middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.”

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

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This book caught me unaware. I didn’t know anything about it, and from a quick glance at the cover I thought it was going to be something light/happy (I dunno, the flowers?) but boy howdy I was wrong. The hints were there all along, the font is harsh, the literal string, but I went in knowing nothing. It was a selection of my library book club, and it was definitely an emotional roller coaster. The premise is this, and I’m not giving away much because […]

Why does Superman always get top billing?

Superman's Good Guy Gang by Rob Justus

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Perhaps I should not admit I read something like Superman’s Good Guy Gang by Rob Justus as it is, well, a bit on the less than mature side. This is not for the adult reader who likes a more sophisticated book, but if your child (or you) are a typical five to eight-year-old who has a slightly goofy sense of humor and likes superheroes then this is for you. So, in other words I will admit I read it and say I know there’s an […]

Sisters, secrets and dog catchers

Ruff Day (Sixth-Grade Shape-Shifter) by Steven Scott

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Ruff Day (Sixth-Grade Shape-Shifter) by Steven Scott and illustrated by Lavinia Brandizi is due in August 2025. And in fact, perhaps the whole series is. It is possible then that when reading my online reader copy I was not starting with book one. This would make sense as there are several pieces of information that are missing and are only “filled in” as almost sidebars and/or to explain to someone when they find out the secret of our main character. The premise is that our […]

A very sweet adventure story, gorgeously packaged

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

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4.5 stars Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Celestial (there is a big moon and several stars on the cover) What if in The Princess Bride, Buttercup didn’t sit at home and mourn for Westley when he was captured by pirates, but instead went off to try to rescue him? Of course, that would mean Buttercup had any agency at all in either the novel or the film, and she really doesn’t. But if Buttercup was a young woman named Tress, from a barren and fairly desolate […]



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