Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


All Girls Summer Camp? Sounds like a bad idea to me

The Last Time I Lied: A Novel by Riley Sager

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15 years ago, Emma went to summer camp for the very first time.  Being late to arrive, the 13 year old was placed with three girls who were older and were friends already.  There was the queen bee, Vivian, bitchy when she wanted to be, always adventurous and determined.  Natalie and Allison played the role of the queen’s attendents, doing whatever Vivian told them to do. Emma?  Emma just idolized Vivian.  Having been at the camp only two weeks and falling in line with the […]

It’s a mystery to me but not the intended one

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

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The Mysterious Benedict Society was an entertaining read, but it really felt familiar, like I’ve read this before. I saw someone make the comparison to Willy Wonka, and I can definitely see that as in there is a mysterious benefactor who wants/needs several children to accomplish a major goal (in this case defeating an enemy who may or may not be known to Mr. Benedict; it’s rather unclear how much he knows about what’s going on for much of the book), but there is something […]

Giant Rabbits, Foot Wounds, and Loose Ends

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

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Two young girls and their mother move to a neighborhood featuring a communal park after their father/husband commits a serious crime leaving their family home in ruins. The girls meet an eccentric group of children with an even more eccentric group of parents, a perverted grandpa called Puppy, and an old lady with a giant rabbit. Weirdness ensues. The story begins leading the reader to believe they will be consuming a page-turning murder mystery/thriller; however, this reader found herself struggling to push to the unsatisfying […]

Darren, Texas Ranger

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

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Black writers, like all black people, are not defined solely by being oppressed. The majority of black fiction writers will write about how they deal with racism because it is an every day reality in their lives but it is not the only reality. Attica Locke’s fiction exemplifies this. Darren Mathews, the star of what appears to be the first in a series from Locke, is a complicated man. You empathize for him to a degree because of what he has to endure as a […]

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A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block

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I’m a mystery book lover and I’ve read plenty of Edgar Award recipients. For the life of me, I don’t know why they pick some of the ones they do. Margaret Millar’s Beast in View is fine but it in no way should be considered better than Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Some of the other winners I’ve not been impressed with either, especially ones by Stephen King and Noah Hawley. Occasionally, they do get it right. The Laughing Policeman, Briarpatch and The Spy That Came In From the Cold are a […]

In The Spider’s Web

Wild Town by Jim Thompson

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The Year of Jim Thompson begins with what according to GoodReads is his most popular book that I have yet to read: Wild Town. While it had some bumps, it was good and reminded me of how much I love Thompson’s work, especially after the two I read last year were too vulgar (King Blood) and too dull (Now and On Earth). This is classic Thompson with a twist: a locked room mystery that hooks the prototypical Thompson sucker  in a bind with the prototypical Thompson […]



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