Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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an old school day of staying in and doing nothing but reading :)

King Sorrow by Joe Hill

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Wait this is Stephen King’s son?!?! What a flex to note that you asked for some editing help from your parents, Tabitha and Stephen King (“ma and da,” if you’re curious) and saying they’ve made everything you’ve written better. Another quick thought before I forget: how cheeky to note, in-story, three celebrity authors at the book launch of [redacted as spoiler], one of which is Donna Tartt, whose The Secret History this book owes an ENORMOUS debt to. So perhaps I will start there, which is to […]

If you thought The Secret History needed a dragon …

King Sorrow by Joe Hill

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This is Joe Hill’s first novel in almost a decade so I was pretty excited to read it because I remember enjoying some of his previous novels like Horns and Heartshaped Box. I had completely forgotten that his last novel, The Fireman, didn’t do anything for me. And while I like NOS4A2, Hill’s novels generally seem to be darker or have a less hopeful outlook than his father’s (and King can get dark but there’s something about them that feels a little less dreary). I […]

King Sorrow by Joe Hill

King Sorrow by Joe Hill

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Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Trigger warning: The way it’s described it sounds like coercion which to my mind is still rape, but wanted to put a rape trigger warning here for readers due to a plot point with one of the characters. I don’t even know what to say. This is definitely a slog of a book (it’s over 800 pages) and there’s not a lot to say about it even though […]

Jackknife by Joe Hill

Jackknife by Joe Hill

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Trigger warning: Gruesome animal death. Honestly, I don’t know what to say about this one except the main character, Dennis Lange, was a dreadful man. I didn’t feel sad about anything that happened, but think that Hill left too many plot threads I wish he had explored more. This one cried out for more pages IMHO since it just kind of hinted at things that didn’t make a lot of sense. I also think Hill wanted to talk about “canceling” and “MeToo” but this was […]

‘Aint no chocolates here

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

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“Buy my step-father’s ghost.” You’d think this was a novel idea, but it is something you can find on ebay today. I was going to link something here but got the heebie jeebies just searching for haunted items and don’t need the bad vibes right now. Although I have to wonder, does it increase the value of an item to describe it as haunted? In either case, buyer beware! Heart Shaped Box is Hill’s first full-length novel, published in 2007 (he also published a collection […]

Spooky season cannonball!

The Pram by Joe Hill

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What a fitting book to complete my Cannonball on for this spooky season! The Pram is a short story by one of Stephen King’s sons. I think I’ve read other Joe Hill stories and not really loved them, but I liked this one a lot. We start out with Willy and Marianne moving to a farmhouse in Maine after they suffered a miscarriage. Marianne was so depressed and lifeless that Willy wanted to get her out into the fresh air and away from their old […]



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