Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

You’re the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy.

Here for the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang

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“I don’t have to sleep with him on our Honeymoon,” Lauren says. “They actually encourage you to just spend the night, like, kissing. Talking about vulnerable stuff you wouldn’t want to discuss on-camera.” “Right. And there’s a lot of vulnerable stuff you need to tell him,” Damian says. “For instance, you need to tell him you don’t like guys.” ― Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang, Here for the Wrong Reasons She didn’t see rampant homophobia so much as she never saw a happy gay future […]

Renovation Horrorshow (Or “I don’t deserve to be haunted by cows”)

Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker

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Take reality TV ghosthunting, marry it with reality TV home makeover and then write a book about a Production Assistant (PA) working on said show and you get – Haunt Sweet Home!    And if you are me, you get a book that started stressing me out even before we got to the creepier bits. Mara is our lead character and she is sort of adrift. She’s an only child, the youngest cousin in a sprawling family of musicians (except she has no musical talent), […]

“They pick volatile people, people who’re going to perform for the cameras, they wind them up as tight as they can, they engineer a bunch of high-stress situations that are practically guaranteed to make someone lose their shit, throw in some alcohol—and then they sit back and let the cameras roll and the tweets pour in.”

One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

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If you’re looking for another summer read to lazily sink your reading teeth into, Ruth Ware is usually a pretty good choise, and this one is no different. With a beachy setting, lots of intrigue and vapid people it’s a recipe for grand escapism. For anyone who is a mindful consumer of reality TV (i.e. you know it’s fake but you love it anyway) this is a fun peak behind the fictional curtain of a British show set on a tropical island meant to showcase […]

I wish this book had accompanying videos with the various dance routines

Take the Lead by Alexis Daria

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3.5 stars Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Reality TV CBR16 Bingo: Disco (so much dancing in this book) Gina Morales has been a dancer for four seasons of the popular reality dancing show The Dance Off, but she’s never even made it to the finals. She dreams of stardom but doesn’t like the behind-the-scenes machinations on the show. She may be a beautiful Latina woman, but refuses to be roped into any kind of ‘Showmance’. She wants to be taken seriously as a dancer and choreographer. […]

If you want me to tell you what the scandal was, leave me a comment. CBRBINGO – Scandal

Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker

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I think I will nearly always like a true crime adjacent book. Add in the faux oral history aspect of this one, and the fact that it’s about a family who choose to go on a reality TV show “to find their missing daughter” and my interest in this was pretty huge. It mostly delivered, but it was also a pretty straightforward thriller without much of interest to say about true crime or reality TV beyond that it’s gross, exploitative, and hurts people. It also […]

This was perfectly fine and I did not like it at all.

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

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I actually think what’s going on here is that I really do not like most possession/exorcism stories. Despite loving the friendship aspects of My Best Friend’s Exorcism*, I had a hard time getting through that book and I like it the least of all Grady Hendrix’s stuff, and now I think I know why. The possession story arc mimics dysfunction, and the breakdown of familial relationships (often) or friendships is highly unpleasant to me. I also don’t get anything out of it. Starting about thirty […]



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