Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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4, 4 for 4

Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life As A Weapon by Matt Fraction

Death Comes As The End by Agatha Christie

Country Dark by Chris Offutt

Heaven's A Lie by Wallace Stroby

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Over the weekend and into the early part of this week, I read four books. Each one merited four stars and all were good in their own unique way…   Hawkeye, Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon It’s good. I guess. No really, it’s good. All good. It’s fine. Just…it’s kind of why I don’t read a lot of comics: simplistic hero narratives with twee dialogue. I know this is what everyone wants thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’m not sure it’s what […]

Jersey? Sure.

The Barbed-Wire Kiss by Wallace Stroby

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Hmmmmm. I really liked this book. It’s a great first novel and I promise to read more Wallace Stroby. Thing is, I wanted to like this book more. But it leans one some of my least favorite tropes in male-written crime fiction. The first chapter is one of the best first chapters I’ve read in a crime novel. It does a great job of introducing setting, protagonist and problem. Right away, I was pulled into its bleak, lower-class Jersey shore atmosphere. The dialogue was finely tuned and […]

What Comes Next

By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl

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Read as part of CBR13Bingo: they/she/he. The author is a trans woman and the protagonist (as well as another main character) is also a trans woman.  Once again, I’m grateful for book bingos because they challenge me to read stuff that I’ve been making excuses to put off. It’s no secret that the mystery/thriller world is largely devoid of bestselling LGBTQIA+ writers, specifically trans writers. This is not for lack of talent, rather a lack of seeking talent on behalf of publishing houses. On the rare […]

A really long review that has spoilers

Becoming Beatriz by Tami Charles

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This review is long as this book brought out a lot of feelings. Feelings of remembering books I read as a kid and didn’t get “the point” of. Feelings of current events. Feelings of not liking characters. And a lot more.  This is a book you experience and YMMV. Becoming Beatriz is the companion novel to Like Vanessa. It starts on the day Beatriz turns 15 and the night her brother is murdered by a rival gang. Like this incident was a sidebar in the […]

A semi-autobiographical debut novel that opens up a world

Like Vanessa by Tami Charles

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Like Vanessa is a sweet and realistic story of liking yourself, while finding your home, family and who you truly are. Tami Charles bases her character Vanessa on some of her own experiences making this an interesting combination of fact, fiction, history and contemporary issues. In 1983 Vanessa is a dark-skinned girl living in the inner city. Vanessa, her cousin, her beloved grandfather Pop-Pop and her father live in a small apartment. But they could not be farther apart if they live in a mansion. […]

Welcome to my first ever 1-star review

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CBR10 Bingo: Home, Something, Home (Janet Evanovich is from my home state of New Jersey, where the action in this novel also takes place.) I tend to be fairly generous in my reviews, with most of them falling in the 3- to 4-star range. Even if I don’t particularly care for a book, I appreciate that an individual has put herself out there and offered up something she created for the world to enjoy, and that deserves respect. Sometimes the process of writing a review calls my […]



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