Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“I didn’t need any help getting angry, I was great at that on my own.”

Platform Decay by Martha Wells

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Monthly Keyword 26: Decay Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book is out on May 5th, 2026. Murderbot (who has installed a mental health module now, and keeps doing Emotion checks on itself) is on a rescue mission on a large artificial planet controlled mostly by Barish-Estranza. What starts out as needing to find and escort three people from the hostile territory becomes a lot more complicated when Murderbot is forced to agree to locate […]

“The beginning of a novel is like a first date.”

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

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Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Adapted into movie or TV show (on Apple+ now) 19-year-old Margo Millet has an ill-advised affair with her English professor at college and gets pregnant. Against the advice of absolutely everyone, including her mother (a former Hooters waitress), she decides to keep it. Unfortunately, being pregnant and then a young single mother isn’t especially attractive on the job market, and before she knows it, two of her roommates have also moved out, because they just can’t handle the noise and the […]

Crimes Against Our Own Humanity

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven R. Scott

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I’ve spent a career at the margins of politics, learning a lot about how people interact and how the most insignificant seeming interaction can have massive ripple effects and how political discourse flows in certain directions, mainly towards fear. It’s a world of real-politik which can best described with the world-weary quote from Men in Black, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.” Nowhere is this more evident than in George Takei (Yes, Sulu from Star Trek)’s graphic novel rendition of his […]

MI-5 with monsters!

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

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Just last week I confessed that espionage is not my jam. This week I’m saying that espionage can be my jam if it contains vampires, flesh-absorbing monsters, and a kick-ass female protagonist. Shout out to MsWas for the recommendation. This book saved me when I was in a mini-slump! A woman becomes conscious (I’m specifically avoiding the term “waking up”) in a London park with no memory of who she is or how she got there, surrounded by dead bodies, all of whom are wearing […]

“Just because a lady shared a deep, smoldering kiss with a gentleman didn’t mean that gentleman need be privy to all that lady’s business.”

Rules for Ruin by Mimi Matthews

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Monthly Keyword 26: Ruin Official plot summary (because I read this in February): On the outskirts of London sits a seemingly innocuous institution with a secretive aim—train young women to distract, disrupt, and discredit the patriarchy. Outraged by a powerful politician’s systematic attack on women’s rights, the Academy summons its brightest—and most bitter—pupil to infiltrate the odious man’s inner circle. A deal is bring down the viscount, and Miss Euphemia Flite will finally earn her freedom. But betting shop owner Gabriel Royce has other plans. […]

“When someone describes a man as harmless, he ends up being a villain.”

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Dark Corner selection – February 26 Defeat the Goblin – The pebble book – a book that was gifted to you Monthly Keyword 26: Sun Nowhere Book Bingo 26: A book with multiple POVs Read the Rainbow: Black This is a book with a number of different POV characters. There is Serapio, a blind young man whom we first encounter as a child, being horribly mutilated by his mother (who subsequently throws herself off a building). All this horrific violence is to make him a […]



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