Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“Children long to be eaten. Everyone knows that.”

XO Orpheus: 50 New Myths by Kate Bernheimer (editor)

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Am I typing this up while wearing a tee featuring the cover of the d’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths? YOU KNOW IT! That strange tome of simplified myth and ultra-bright illustration cracked open a need in me when I was very young. I re-read that book countless times, and used it as the entry point into the larger world of mythology. Combined with a Catholic upbringing that was far more focused on the deaths of the saints than on anything else, you could saw I […]

Henry James would not have understood what a smart house is.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

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I read the first third of this in my paperback copy, then switched over to the audio to see if I could jump start my interest in it again. It worked! For a while, at least. It helped me get through the book, anyway. I liked the audio version better. I was super into this book at first, but as soon as the main character reached the house in the country, something about it lost me. It probably also didn’t help that I was traveling […]

Colorful and Challenging Times in Olympus

Lore Olympus volume 1 by Rachel Smythe

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It seems like one of the favorite Greek myths to retell right now is the story of Hades and Persephone. I know of at least two currently underway on Webtoons: Punderworld and Lore Olympus. The latter recently came out in hard copy book form for the first 25 chapters and also won Goodreads’ Best Graphic Novel or Comic of 2021. I was a little surprised to see it on display at the library (I figured it would be checked out with a waiting list), so […]

a mermaid’s tail made of donkey skin (a dual cbr13bingo and #cannonbookclub adventure!)

Deerskin by Robin McKinley

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

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well, not exactly. What we have here are two retellings of classic fairy tales: Charles Perrault’s deeply upsetting Donkeyskin (recently reviewed by our very own BlackRaven) and Hans Christian Andersen’s  also unsettling The Little Mermaid. Both of these entries are picks for our upcoming #cannonbookclub event- and I’ll be discussing Deerskin further during our Zoom- but in the meantime, let these two help you choose your pick(s)! Also- both of these tales of girls on the cusp of womanhood have been reclaimed and retold by women. […]

You don’t need to remember very much of The Great Gatsby to appreciate retellings

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

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So here’s the thing: I’m not like, super into The Great Gatsby. I read it in school, and like everyone else I’ve gone to a thousand Great Gatsby parties (hopefully we’re all done with them still, because otherwise the thematic appropriateness means we’ll be flappering well into the mid-20s). But from what I remember, this book nails the overall ~*mood*~ of the book, which I feel is best summarized by one of my favorite words: insouciance. Everyone is always bright and fragile and brittle and shiny […]

One of many literature romance novels I will read this year

Love at First by Kate Clayborn

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So this is obviously a Romeo and Juliet re-telling, except as it were the real R&J couple are Will (Romeo’s) parents. That’s not a spoiler–I don’t mean it in the “they were foes and died tragically in a murder/suicide,” because it’s more the sentiment, like the outlines of their romance. The very first review of this book perfectly captured something I also wished–that Will and Nora had actually met in the first part of the book, such that their/Will’s instant connection was based on more than a […]



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