Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The whole world is a nerd.

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

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I’m waiting for Rowell to send another satisfyingly awkward love story (without magic and told mostly with words and not pictures) out into the world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the Simon Snow books. I also enjoyed Pumpkinhead even though graphic novels really aren’t my thing. But, I yearn for books like Eleanor and Park and Fangirl and Attachments. So, I attempted to scratch that itch with this set of short stories. I had read a couple of these in other collections […]

Justice and the law aren’t the same thing.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

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I have read nearly all of Deanna Raybourn’s books and this one is a definite departure from her usual historical fiction. However, she keeps her penchant for mystery solving shenaningans here, and her trademark sense of humor is intact. Just a wee bit snarkier. Four retiring lady assassins are invited by their former employer to literally sail into the next phase of their lives aboard a complimentary cruise. How are former assassins allowed to just retire and sail off into the sunset, you ask? Well, […]

“They lead ‘still’ lives, waiting.”

Still Life by Louise Penny

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My husband and I started watching the Three Pines series on Amazon Prime, which was enjoyable; Chief Inspector Gamache, played by Alfred Molina, is a delight of eyebrows. The television series reminded me that I likely hadn’t read Ms. Penny’s earlier works though I have picked up the occasional book in an airport bookstore but have moved haphazardly through the series; thus, I decided to start at the first book. Sill Life draws Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec to the delightfully bucolic […]

Is Dorothy dead yet? It’s book 3 of 4 so…

Yellow Brick War (Dorothy Must Die series book #3) by Danielle Paige

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I gotta tell you, this book seems more like a vehicle to get from book 2 to book 4. I don’t really remember much about it except that Amy has returned to Flat Hill Kansas and is looking for the first pair of Dorothy’s magic shoes (apparently the ruby slippers were her second pair that Glinda used to bring her back to Kansas after returning home). Amy has returned to her mother, who seems to be doing better without her, but is eager to make […]

I still don’t get what a nome is…

The End of Oz (Dorothy Must Die book #4) by Danielle Paige

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This is the fourth and final installment of the Dorothy Must Die series. The first three books are dark in their own right, but this book feels a little more so. In book 4, we travel to Ev, land of the Nome King. I’m not familiar with the original Oz books, but if you are familiar with the difference between The Wizard of Oz movie and the sequel Return to Oz, that is the change of pace to which I’m referring. Remember the wheelers? Yeah, […]

Monkeys and unicorns, and monsters, oh my!

The Wicked Will Rise (Dorothy Must Die book #2) by Danielle Paige

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This is an example of where the second installment is better than the first. If you aren’t familiar with the Dorothy Must Die series of books, you can read my review of book 1 here. Basically, this is the second book in the Dorothy Must Die series, which tells the story of Amy Gumm, a teenager from Flat Hills Kansas, who finds herself whisked away to Oz. Amy discovers Dorothy is real, and has transformed Oz into a magical wasteland and ruled with an iron fist. […]



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