Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Mostly Amusing, Sometimes Confusing

Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead, The Loyal Opposition Trilogy Book 1 by K.J. Parker

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As a product of the Catholic school system from second grade through university, I have sat through A LOT of religion and theology classes. Heresies, schisms, saints, martyrs, whatever, I feel pretty well versed in church history. While KJ Parker’s Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead is a fantasy novel, it leans hard into Christian church history and theology, setting up some good old fashioned good versus evil scenarios, but it’s not always clear who is good or evil. That’s intentional, but while Parker […]

Woo Pig Sooie

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

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Come and Get It, by Kiley Reid takes place over one semester at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Most of the book takes place in the scholarship/transfer student dorm there. And the main cast of characters includes a few RAs and residents of the dorm, as well as a visiting professor/writer from the north. I know this book won’t be for everyone, but aside from a couple of issues, it was very much for me. One, I found much of the book to be […]

When the walls come tumbling down

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother): A Novel by Rabih Alameddine

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This is a surprising and wonderful novel, managing to bring some light and humor to a grim setting. The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is indeed about main character Raja and his mother Zalfa, but it is also about the modern history of Beirut and its people. Back in the 1980s when I was in high school and college, Beirut was constantly on the news due to the violence and chaos that seemed to be a part of normal life […]

100+ chapters never went by quicker

The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir

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After finishing this one, I thought, “well that was a sweet little horror novel.” I’m not sure I can verbalize why sweet is the best word, but it really is. Maybe it’s Mary Robinette Kowal’s subtle hints of humor alongside the terror in her voice as she narrates Iðunn (pronounced Ethun) in Knútsdóttir’s novella. I rooted for Iðunn and was horrified alongside her as events unfolded. I wanted Iðunn to wake up feeling refreshed, not like she just walked 5 miles or wrestled a bear. […]

This is a story about friendship but guard your heart

The List of Suspicious Things: A Novel by Jennie Godfrey

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This debut novel by Jennie Godfrey was inspired by her childhood in Yorkshire in the 1970s when a murderer stalking women came to be known as the Yorkshire Ripper. Godfrey’s father had actually been an acquaintance of the man later arrested for the murders. In The List of Suspicious Things, main character Miv is a 12-year-old Yorkshire girl who decides that she is going to conduct her own investigation into the identity of the Ripper. Through Miv, her family, friends and neighbors, Godfrey reveals to […]

“And even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn’t have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury.”

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

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An author tries to tell the story of a poor young woman called Macabeá, who despite her wretched circumstances does not seem to understand how unhappy she should be. I picked this book because I read a review by someone else on Goodreads that said this is a bit like if Sybil Trelawney from Harry Potter wrote a book, though I will argue after reading that Lispector, unlike Trelawney, knows exactly what she’s about. (The other thing I know about Lispector is that she wrote […]



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