Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Horror 101 and Comedy 102

Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky

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Boys Weekend is Horror 101 with Comedy 102. The mix of GLBTQ themes, friendship, love, family, and an odd cult-religion all play together with first the idea of humanity, society roles and more that is taking front stage. You can take the action as a straightforward  horror/thriller story or take it for a deeper meaning, but however you take it know there are possible triggers, such as violence, guns, sexual situations, visual gross-outs and blood. Lots of blood. Totally not for everyone, but everyone might […]

Are Hot Dogs Really Just Psychedelic Sandwiches?

Under The Influence by Eliot Rahal, Stefano Simeone

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FBI Agent Cara Cole goes undercover at a university to infiltrate an alleged Internet-based cult called Hot Dog Party, which is led by a teenage influencer who had his fifteen minutes of fame as a meme. I enjoy bizarre horror, I have always liked a good story about cults, and the phenomenon of parasocial relationships is a subject I’ve been hearing more about lately. I also really do not like the taste of hots dogs. As such, this graphic novel sounded right up my alley. […]

Teenage Kicks

The Girls by Emma Cline

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It’s 1969, and 14 year old Evie is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Her parents have divorced and she lives with her early middle aged mother who is out on a self-search quest full of enemas, wheatgrass and horoscopes. Evie underperforms at school and is set to go to boarding school after the summer, and she spends her summer hanging around with her one true friend, whom she dislikes, obsessively reading magazines and following their hammy beauty routines. Evie is obsessed with […]

Cults, Sex, and Vegetarian Recipes

Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat ― An American History by Christina Ward

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I loved this book, which is an odd thing to say because it took me weeks to finish it. It is dense. And the crazy stuff that people called “religion” required more than a few re-reads. On Rosicrucianism Paschal Beverly Randolph saw sex as a powerful energy that could be controlled and sublimated into magical works. As he explored sex magic and the power of the Will, he came to odds with Madame Blavatsky who, as others have testified, tried to kill him with her […]

The Cultish Homecoming

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

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There was a lot going on in the week following my purchase of this book, one I grabbed with great anticipation. So I saved it for the last few days to really savor the experience. Rachel Harrison’s The Return was a sneaky good read; I felt like I was on her storytelling wavelength and that helped overcome the many negative reviews that, I think, missed the point of her book. And now she’s writing a book about returning home to a religious cult? Hell yeah, let’s […]

Amy Larson & Hunter Forrest FBI series

Amy Larson & Hunter Forrest FBI #3 Shadow of Death by Heather Graham

Amy Larson & Hunter Forrest FBI #1 Danger in Numbers by Heather Graham

Amy Larson & Hunter Forrest FBI #2 Crimson Summer by Heather Graham

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I guess I’m back to my old tricks of starting a series at book number three! I don’t know how I do it, but I have a knack for starting at three. Not two, not four, but three. There are many times through the history of my CBRs where I started a series at three. I usually go back and start from one after finishing the third book though! Since this is book three, the duo of Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agent Amy […]



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