Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Father Figure

Father Material (London Calling #3) by Alexis Hall

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Now that Luc and Oliver’s relationship has survived a few ups and downs – from fake dating to real dating, almost getting married – they figure it’s time for the next step: a dog. They get an adorable dog of indeterminate race named Spud, in spite of Oliver’s attempts to name him something elegant and statesque because Spud looks like a potato. Luc immediately feels inadequate in the face of Oliver’s immaculate preparation (reading a shitload of books and taking notes), his stern but loving […]

Sad Gay Bois

Role Model (Game Changers #5) by Rachel Reid

The Long game (Game Changers #6) by Rachel Reid

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

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I don’t know how I ended up reading so many books about gay men this year (and I still have Song of Achilles on my TBR, so go figure) but by and large I’m enjoying myself, so whatever.    The Long Game (Rachel Reid) ***½ Shane and Ilya are back! Everyone’s favourite gay hockey players have moved from casual hookups to being in an actual, honest-to-God relationship – one that they still have to keep hidden from everyone because the media still pitches them as […]

Always this empty heart, always

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

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Dave Win is a thirteen year old school boy at the start of this novel. It’s 1960s England, and Dave – the bastard son of an Englishwoman and a Burmese man, long lost to the turmoils of his home country – grows up as the perpetual outsider. Dave is clever; he has won a scholarship to an elite boarding school, handed out by Mark and Cara Hadlow. The Hadlows are noblesse oblige: patrons of the arts, champions of the disadvantaged. When we first meet Dave […]

(Es)sex and Pirates

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

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Ash Winters is one of those characters you find in a lot of books: the Failed Male Writer. Once a darling of England’s literary scene, Ash now writes pulpy yet wildly successful thrillers as he battles with crippling depression. Then he meets Darian, frequently described by Ash as a glitter pirate: a male model from Essex. There’s spray tan, nylon and the kind of clothing that pairs glitter with artfully crafted holes. Ash is a snob, so he looks down on Darian, but Darian is […]

“An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched”

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2012) by emily m. danforth

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CBR Bingo square “Queer Lives”: The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a queer YA novel, and was banned in a middle school in 2015 in Delaware for “inappropriate language.” I mean, fuck that. The novel was also criticised by the School Library Journal for its length and pacing, and my inclination is also to say fuck that, but I do understand that this is the kind of thing where YMMV. It did take a while to get into, but I was fully immersed when I did. […]

My Kind of Western

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

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This novella has been sitting on my kindle forever and I don’t know why it took me this long to read it but I’m so glad I finally did! I think I’ve talked before about my struggles with short fiction, I always want more. This one wasn’t any different. I don’t know if reading any of Gailey’s other novellas would help clear up some of the background on this story. It’s set in a dystopian America torn apart by war with most people reduced to […]



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