Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“Just when you think you’ve seen the worst human beings have to offer, you find out you’re wrong.”

Holly (Holly Gibney, #3) by Stephen King

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This was bit of a messy book that I ultimately enjoyed very much. King takes a lot of smaller pieces (racism, homophobia, cannibalism, the fear of aging, COVID, poetry and writing and the meaning of art) and smushes them together in this little book following Holly Gibney, a character some people love and some people (inexplicably) hate. I happen to love her. I thought this was a great showcase for Holly, even if it wasn’t perfect, and there were small moments I might have tweaked […]

Horror Month 2023: #2

Holly by Stephen King

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I suppose I should address the conversation around the book before the book itself. There’s been a lot of grousing from center/center-right/right wing King fans about how political this book is. That all the villains are painted as MAGA doofuses. These comments usually have some variety of “King was never political until now!” To which I say…have you ever read Stephen King? His early books are steeped in 70s paranoia. He wrote a book about a man trying to assassinate a presidential candidate, the latter […]

“into every life a little poop must fall”

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

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There’s something about reading Stephen King that really fuels my creativity. And this was a good collection. The real star of these four novellas is the titular If It Bleeds, a direct sequel to The Outsider, but I think I might have actually liked it better than that book. We get some classic themes from Uncle Stevie here but he adds a modern spin to most of them that was interesting, even if some worked better than others for me. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone — 3.5 […]

“I am wonderful, I deserve to be wonderful, and I contain multitudes.”

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

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I haven’t been great about reading lately, and have been even worse about reviewing. But as a loyal Constant Reader, I felt like this might be the book to jumpstart my COVID reading habits, and I was mostly right. Similiar to earlier collections like Different Seasons, The Bachman Books, Full Dark No Stars, and Four Past Midnight, If It Bleeds is made up of four long-ish, unrelated stories (or novellas, if you’re feeling fancy): Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, If It Bleeds, and […]



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