Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Short reads to finish off my reading year (and help me to finally complete my double Cannonball)

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

A Second-Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

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Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen Rating: 4 stars In this novella which concludes Kelly Bowen’s The Devils of Dover series, we finally find out more about the mysterious King, who has been popping up in Bowen’s books for a long time. A shadowy London crime lord with connections to smuggling, art forgery, theft and all sorts of other untoward business, he is not a man to cross. He discovers that a man he believed to be dead, a man who ruined his childhood and set him […]

“There are new monsters now”

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

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This novel sneaks up on you. You’re lulled into comfort with descriptions of old video rental places, suburban living rooms, and the polite peace of the Midwest before being startled awake by sudden glances of violence and fear. These shocks originate from movies. Movies within movies. Were they intended for you to see? Why are they here? Who spliced an almost still image of heavy breathing and a woman with a bag over her head into She’s All That? Uncertainty creeps around every corner- breeding fear, […]

You Expect Me to Believe Everything You Say, Well, Okay

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I wasn’t planning to review any of these books. I’ve read them all so many times, and they are all hopelessly outdated, especially Neither Here Nor There and The Lost Continent. These are books that I read and adored when I was younger, that helped me dream about a world outside of the small town I grew up in, and that even led to an aborted solo road trip when I was 21. Reading them after many years away brought back sweet memories, but there’s […]

The Cheese Stands Alone

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I am not the right audience for this book. I had forgotten I read The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living, but then I got the three-day reminder from my library that it was due back. Blast! So I went to Goodreads to see what my fellow readers were saying. That was a bit of a surprise, as it sure seems like people love this book. They LOVE it. I had to scroll down like 15 reviews before I got to one that was less […]

I really liked this book

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  I’m aligning this book right, because I always align left, and today I’m a rebel! I listened to this book, which is one of my favorite ways to “read” a book.  I can read an audiobook while I’m driving, or at work, or laying in bed with my eyes closed.  It’s pretty rad.  Also, the Overdrive app allows you to adjust the speed, so I had this one playing at 1.2 speed without even realizing it.  I finished it quickly! So I really enjoyed this […]

We Are Family, I Got All My Sisters With Me

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I love Nadiya Hussain. If you are a fan of The Great British Bake Off, you probably love her too. Nadiya was the winner in 2015, and she is, by all accounts the most popular winner in the history of the show. Charming, warm, funny, self-deprecating and gifted with a marvelously expressive face, she made all of us fall in love with her. Since winning TGBBO, Nadiya has published a cookbook (which I received as a surprise present last week from a lovely friend who […]



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