Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


(Mostly) Horror Roundup

London Rules (Slough House #5) by Mick Herron

The Drift by CJ Tudor

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

November (Darker Days) by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

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London Rules (Slough House #5, Mick Herron) *** I enjoy the Slough House books, but I never do know what to write about them. They’re well written and the plot is usually creative and unpredictable, but in spite of that (or perhaps because of that) it’s always the same: River fucks something up, Louisa is prickly, Shirley is aggressive, Diana Taverner is sneaky and antagonistic and Jackson Lamb is smarter than everyone else. There is enough intrigue to keep things interesting (and the Apple TV […]

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

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Please note I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. This was honestly a nail biter of a horror story (pun intended, you will get that after you read about one of the main characters). I thought that it was nicely set up, Wendig did a good job of staying firmly in the past until he jumped forward again to the present, and the explanation behind the staircase was a scary and sad one all put together. I also […]

Screw Your Courage to the Sticking-Place

Monster Movie! by Chuck Wendig

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Ethan is afraid of everything, so when his best friends Olivia and Harvey insist on him joining in on a screening of a mysterious film considered to be the scariest movie ever made, he refuses outright. However, when the movie turns out to be a monster bent on destroying the town, Ethan must brave his fears if he is to save everyone and everything he loves. There’s a difficult balance to reach with middle grade horror, which I hadn’t thought much before I started reading […]

Cosplay jerk needs to get over herself

Dust and Grim by Chuck Wendig

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I’ve had Dust & Grim on my TBR for a little while, and when I was in the bookstore for one thing online said they had but they didn’t, I didn’t want to leave sans book, so I picked up this. Overall, it’s a decent spooky middle grade/YA tale about newly discovered siblings and the family business, a funeral home for the supernatural; don’t say “monster”, that’s offensive. The only real problem was that I did not ever really take a liking to the main […]

The Importance of Story Over Plot and Character

Damn Fine Story by Chuck Wendig

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Mr. Wendig is a blogger known for his colorful language and his writing skills. In Damn Fine Story, he drops a couple cusswords, but he has a different approach to writing. His rules of writing don’t emulate the plot, plot, plot lessons of other DIY writing books. He mentions his father who told a damn fine story but didn’t write or even read books. The story is the main focus here, and a good story is even better. So, beginning writers, don’t focus so much […]

I roam around around around around around….

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

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For the first third of Wanderers, it seems like this is a fairly straight forward mystery: what is making seemingly healthy, random people rise from their beds and sleepwalk in a group across America? They have no uniting characteristics and no history of sleepwalking. They cannot be stopped or else they heat up and literally explode (it’s as gross as you imagine). They do not eat, defecate, speak, or even blink. Syringes cannot pierce their skin. They move in tandem silently, like a school of […]



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