Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Obviously You Should Shoot the Intruder in Your Hidden Pool

The Proud Breed by Celeste de Blasis

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After an unexpected encounter by a hidden pool, Tessa and Gavin fall in love, but their lives together in a rapidly developing California will not be easy. Before this book I’d only read de Blasis’s Wild Swan trilogy, and it was glad to see that we see some of the same hallmarks here – strong, complex characters with an undeniable connection, no matter how many times they might fall away from each other for a time. In fact, I might argue that Tessa was a […]

Bringing L.A. to the Water (and movies, and church)

The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles by Gary Krist

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My Los Angeles kick continues with a good one. Being a big fan of Chinatown, I’ve always been curious about the truth behind the actual story to hydrate Los Angeles. Throw in the stories of the founding of the movie industry and the story of Aimee Semple McPherson’s controversial life and I’m in. Gary Krist delivers. He doesn’t get too bogged down in the technical aspects of the respective fields he’s describing. I felt like I got a healthy picture of each particular person involved: McPherson, city engineer […]

You Will Feel Better If You Just Read the Darn Thing

Reckless by Ed Brubaker

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Sometimes, I just wait too long, sleeping on books, making excuse after excuse about why I won’t finally pick up something I’ve wanted to read for years. Who knows why I (and apparently other readers are) this way? There’s probably some psychological reason. Ed Brubaker’s Reckless series is right up my alley: a disaffected 70s domestic Cold Warrior doing odd crime jobs in the 80s? Yessir. I should’ve read this at my earliest possible convenience. But I prefer prose to graphics, liking to sink into […]

Pod Stalking

If I Disappear by Eliza Jane Brazier

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: Shadow. The main character shadows around her favorite podcaster who may-or-may-not be dead, looking to see if she can figure out the cause of her sudden disappearance.  With the release of Adnan Syed from prison, I’ve been wondering if the podcast Serial did more harm than good. While it brought Adnan’s case to the forefront of the nation’s psyche, it was really Rabia Chaudry who did the legal heavy lifting to free him. And since season one of Serial ended, it’s spawned an infinite amount […]

Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair

Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran

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Unlike Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, I wasn’t able to down this one quickly like I thought I would. I had to sit with certain parts of it. It’s more personal and raw than the first one…and just as good, if not better. It’s tough to describe Gran’s writing style. It’s this mix of absurdism, postmodernism and hardboiled. Usually, people who write that way are trying way too hard. For Gran, it’s effortless. And it makes every dialogue exchange an adventure. Sometimes, I […]

Ladies of the Canyons flashback

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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  What a blast from the past.  Spoiler alert, Daisy Jones and I am the same age, and living the 1970’s LA life whilst in your twenties was some good times.  The music was all around, in an LA-centric way I have not seen since.  (Still here.)  The clubs were rocking, but I did not have that kind of money, although the boyfriend and I managed to swing tickets once for the Universal Amphitheater and Linda Ronstadt in all her boy scout uniform glory (damn, […]



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