Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The big reread that I should have done before my last review

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

Network Effect by Martha Wells

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

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After reading the latest novel in Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, I decided I wanted to reread the whole series, which I originally reviewed for CBR14. I had thought of doing this before reviewing System Collapse, but I told myself it wasn’t necessary and I should focus on all the books on my TBR list. But I love this series so much and going back through the whole run was fun. I expect this is the kind of thing I will do with every new Murderbot release. […]

I don’t recommend reading a sequel before reading the first one

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

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This book made me kinda mad. But it’s partially my fault. Apparently it’s a sequel and I’m not sure how I didn’t know that going in. For those who live under a rock, like me, Jennifer Egan wrote A Visit From the Goon Squad. Did you know there’s a sequel to that? Yeah yeah. I’m not convinced you need to read one to get the other though. Based on Egan’s style of writing, which is to say, eclectic. There are a multitude of characters with […]

I was probably the target audience for this book when it was written, 25 years ago. But I still love it today.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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“Your words are kindling, twigs covered in wax, soaked in lamp oil, sticky with tar. Your breath is a match, scratching along sandpaper… Whisper break the silence, one word, then two…with every word spoken a loud victory. The words burst into flames, the silence, broken.” This imagery from the novel’s foreward was so powerful and poetic, and the story hadn’t even started yet! But what a great story it is, and beautifully told – even though one doesn’t think of freshman year of high school […]

Scheming to the Finish Line

Crush the King by Jennifer Estep

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Evie’s been queen of Bellona for a year. While she’s survived plenty of sinister plots and assassination attempts, she knows that her position will never be secure until she can defeat the threat of Morta once and for all – and the Regalia Games seem to be the perfect time for that. This is the final book in the Crown of Shards trilogy. While I loved the first book, I found the second rather disappointing, so I was hoping that the author would be able […]

Free Will

System Collapse: The Murderbot Diaries Book 7 by Martha Wells

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I read all the previous Murderbot stories at the beginning of CBR14 (reviews here, here and here), and while the details of those novels were perhaps a little fuzzy for me when I started this latest Murderbot, I was quickly up to speed and enjoying the continuing saga of everyone’s favorite misanthropic human-robot hybrid. As usual I zipped through this and loved it for its snarky humor and for its development of Murderbot’s relationships with the humans it works for and the artificial intelligence it […]

A ghost story from the olden days

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

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This period thriller is from 1898 and is about a governess who is hired by a man to care for his niece and nephew. The governess begins the job with excitement, but soon experiences disturbing events and believes ghosts of deceased employees are coming for the kids. This novella was adapted from serial installments in the magazine Collier’s Weekly. It was interesting to read a ghost story from over 100 years ago and see how similar it is to modern-day ghost stories, but in a […]



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