Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


The Grief of Wisdom

Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler

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That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. – Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (NKJV). Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried reminds me of the Book of Ecclesiastes. It is, in my mind, the least hopeful and most useful book of the Bible. All of this has happened before, and […]

Doomsday Do’s and Doomsday Don’ts

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

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Carl is a normal dude. Except that he is stuck in the apocalypse. With his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut. And there is an alien invasion. Plus, Carl and most of what’s left of humanity are involuntarily placed on a Running-Man-style intergalactic game show. And the contestants don’t know who (if anyone) to trust. And the odds are that they will all die very soon. To stave off the inevitable, the characters have to kill monsters (Are they monsters?) and level up. Is it worth it […]

Back to a life of crime

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon

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After the events of the last novel, Paige is back in her old life in the Syndicate, London’s Underground crime ring of clairvoyants. She wants to fight back and do something about what she witnessed in Oxford and expose the oppressive authoritarian government but she doesn’t know what to do next: no one would believe her if she just told the truth as it sounds too fantastical, and the leaders of the Syndicate, who could make a difference, don’t want to hear her – too […]

Nightmares of the Fourth Reich

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

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Without a doubt, the best thing I’ve read so far this year. Quarter of the way through and not much comes close. As I’ve said many times, I don’t like dystopias that lean too hard into the dystopic-aspect. I like them with the axis of earth just tilted slightly; looking at reality through a cracked mirror. In other words, take scary parts of society and bend them a little to suit your story. Laila Lalami more than delivers that here. What’s frightening about The Dream Hotel is […]

Sparks in the Wind

Sunrise On The Reaping by Suzanne Collins

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Readers of the Hunger Games are familiar with Haymitch, the drunken mentor of Katniss and Peeta, and with how he won his Games, and what happened afterward – but not all is as it seems on the big screen. I love The Hunger Games series, and I really enjoyed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, so even though I am not as interested in Haymitch’s Games as many other fans are, I was still incredibly excited when this book was announced, not only for the chance […]

“The middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.”

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

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This book caught me unaware. I didn’t know anything about it, and from a quick glance at the cover I thought it was going to be something light/happy (I dunno, the flowers?) but boy howdy I was wrong. The hints were there all along, the font is harsh, the literal string, but I went in knowing nothing. It was a selection of my library book club, and it was definitely an emotional roller coaster. The premise is this, and I’m not giving away much because […]



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