Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Unlikable Characters Doing Inexplicable Things

Tell Me Who You Are by Louisa Luna

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The story: Dr. Caroline Strange is a psychiatrist in Brooklyn. She has a very inflated sense of self-worth, believing she knows what’s best for everyone, and gives all of her patients cutesy, cringy, cruel nicknames like Tawdry Twyla and Weepy Jasmine. One morning a new patient arrives, tells her, “I’m going to kill someone, and I know who you really are,” and walks out. This sets off twin storylines, narrated by three different characters–1) Caroline in the present, trying to figure out who this guy […]

Don’t fear the reaper

A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer: A SCYTHE Mystery Book 1 by Maxie Dara

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This is a decent murder mystery featuring “grim reapers” and dead souls. It’s funny at times and includes some colorful support characters who clearly will play a big role in future novels in the series. I found it through a “Book Riot” recommendation. Book Riot is one of those book accounts on FB that pops up in my feed regularly and sometimes makes pretty good recommendations. A Grim Reaper’s Guide was good; not “wow, I can’t wait to read the rest of this series” good, […]

Early Fall Leftovers

To Start A War: How the Bush Administration Took Us Into Iraq by Robert Draper

The Travelers by Chris Pavone

A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block

Dark Fire by CJ Sansom

The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation by Robert Rand

Stasi Child by David Young

The Cover Wife by Dan Fesperman

So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

The Devil Knows You're Dead by Lawrence Block

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I’ve read some interesting stuff lately and I wish I had made more time to document it but life gets in the way that life sometimes does. Not all bad, just life. To Start A War**** I had a long thing here about connecting this to the 2024 election but I don’t want to talk current electoral politics on here, at least the specifics of them. A good book if you want to know the intelligence (ha) perspective of how we wound up in a […]

“She might be less than what she had once been, but she was still worth a hell of a lot.”

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

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The older I get, the more out of touch I feel with the twenty-something heroines in certain books. The romance genre especially has a lot of really young heroines, and my 45-yr-old self has a hard time, sometimes, not rolling her eyes at just how young they actually are/act, or how implausibly far away 27 feels at this point. Which is not to say that I am ready to read only the quiet, cozy mysteries that seem most populated by people older  – and still […]

Marketed as a thriller, but it really isn’t

Don't Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna

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The story: In the early aughts, Abby, Bree, and Chelsea were best friends and students at the University of Iowa. On Halloween night, they get in a fight, Abby runs off, and is never seen again. Her suspected killer is later arrested and convicted of another murder, but Abby’s death is never officially solved. Twelve years later, Bree and Chelsea have drifted apart but are brought back together as Abby’s suspected killer is soon to face the death penalty for his other crimes. The story […]

July-August 2024 Leftovers

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

Confucius for Christians: What and Ancient Chinese Worldview Can Teach Us about Life in Christ by Greg A. Ten Elshof

Lucky At Cards by Lawrence Block

A Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block

Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by Gerald Posner

Doing the Devil's Work by Bill Loehfelm

The Kneeling Man: My Father's Life as a Black Spy Who Witnessed the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Leta McCullough Seletzky

The Third Bullet by Stephen Hunter

Burning Angel by James Lee Burke

The Queen City Detective Agency by Snowden Wright

Poetic Justice by Andrea J. Johnson

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Because I’ve been posting most of my reviews due to Bingo, I haven’t kept up with the leftover ones until now. Hope everyone had  a good summer. It’s my least favorite time of year but this one wasn’t so bad. Heartsick***: I took this book too seriously when I tried to read it the first time. I relaxed and enjoyed the ride the second. Goofy fun, nothing more. Brief Answers to the Big Questions****: I do enjoy listening to Hawking’s desire to push the boundaries […]



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