Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Trans and Transitions

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: liberate. Carlotta is coming home from prison, which is some sort of liberation and she’s trying to find her way as a trans woman in the world, seeking her own path to liberation. I’ve written before about my beef with contemporary writing and how smarmy it’s become. Every villain has to twirl their mustache, every hero has to overcome a specific obstacle to warm the audience’s heart, everything is so boringly Manichaean. There’s little space for complexity, imperfection, growth, […]

Mixing it up with gentrification, magic, and Mothman

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

I'm in Love with Mothman by Paige Lavoie

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different genres – suspense thriller, urban fantasy, and monster romance When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole has been in my audible library for way too long. When it was picked for my Lawless book club, it was a sign. I do like to read mystery and thrillers to mix it up between the glut of romances I read. Dubbed by the author as a gentrification thriller, Sydney Green is having a bad time. After a disastrous divorce, she’s moved back in […]

December 2023 Leftovers

Mandarin Plaid by SJ Rozan

Lady Killer, Volume 1 by Joëlle Jones

Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend by Alys Arden

Batman, Vol. 6: Graveyard Shift by Scott Snyder

The Confession by Domenic Stansberry

A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself by William Boyle

Joe Dogs: The Life and Crimes of a Mobster by Joseph Iannuzzi

Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

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Merry Christmas. We may need to dispense with the cold/snow songs. They’re about as realistic as Santa at this point. Mandarin Plaid **** SJ Rozan continues to improve with each book in this series. This one has layers and moves well to its conclusion. I’m not gonna be totally sold on a white person writing from the perspective of an AAPI one but I think Rozan does a better job with it than she did in the first one. May have to go long with […]

Back and Forth In the Day

Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem

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Widows is one of my favorite movies from the last few decade, a criminally underrated mismarketed gem of a flick that should have not only got more commercial love but awards love as well. I won’t say what it’s about, you should watch it. Don’t even Google the plot, just watch. It’s excellent. Anyway, there’s a great tracking shot that is not only my favorite scene in the movie but one of my favorite scenes of all-time. Colin Farrell’s nepo baby city council candidate character gets […]

Horror Month 2023: #6

The Darkness of Others by Cate Holahan

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Took a break from this season of horror reading to get to a thriller I’ve been meaning to check off the ol’ TBR. Mixed feelings on it. It was one of those roller coaster books. No it did not thrill me like a roller coaster. But the shape of my enjoyment went from flat to a high curve and back to flat again. Cate Holahan develops an intricate mystery here, even if large parts of it are predictable. And she imbues it with some quality […]

May-July Leftovers

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

City of Dreams by Don Winslow

Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright

Under Color of Law by Aaron Philip Clark

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Tripwire by Jack Reacher

Baby Moll by John Farris

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess by Evan Drellich

X by Davey Davis

Our Last Season: A Writer, A Fan, A Friendship by Harvey Araton

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen

The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham

Ex Machina Book Four by Brian K. Vaughan

Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite

Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell

The Crust on Its Uppers by Derek Raymond

That Kind of Danger by Donna Masini

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Spenser Confidential by Ace Atkins

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Weyward by Emilia Hart

The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel by Ellen Raskin

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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I usually do these at the end of the month but then I went through a big reading slump March-May. And then I roared back but realized I was behind. So apologies for this being so long. There Will Be Fire **** A good, readable text on a moment in history I knew little about. Even after reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, I still had a lot of problem keeping track of all the socio-political dynamics so it’s good that Rory Carroll makes it accessible […]



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