Dogs by Nancy Kress (CBR-III #24)

Cannonball Read III: Book #24/52
Published: 2008
Pages: 320 (10,879 total so far)
Genre: Thriller

This book is about small town Tyler, Maryland and their sudden resurgence of dog attacks. Eventually, the entire town is quarantined due to a dog plague that is rapidly spreading. In the center of our story is former FBI agent, Tessa. Tessa just moved to Tyler from Washington, DC after her husband died in a car crash.

I'm not a dog person. So, a mass canine plague resulting in having to kill all the local dogs probably wouldn't really bother me as much as most people. I was also bitten by a dog once, so I sympathized more with the mauled humans than what's going to happen to the dogs.

The story starts out pretty strong. We have some decent characters and a town thrown into hysteria by some pretty brutal dog attacks. Then everything just kind of goes downhill. Kress throws in a bunch of unnecessary characters who all just sort of get jumbled up along with bunch of unnecessary subplots.

I wish they'd kept the focus more on Tessa and the two animal control guys, but they kind of get lost when they bring in all of the secondary characters (doctor who is studying the dog disease, random people in the hospital, etc.). Not to mention the totally random plots that come out of nowhere such as Tessa running off to Europe for about 30 pages.

I can imagine this getting made into a really tacky Scifi (or Syfy or whatever they're calling themselves now) Channel movie. It's not going to win any awards, but I can think of worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon.

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (CBR-III #23)

Cannonball Read III: Book #23/52
Published: 2003
Pages: 432 (10,559 total so far)
Genre: Nonfiction/History

Most of my knowledge of the LDS or the FLDS came from the TV show Big Love or a handful of knowledge from reading about FLDS polygamous compound escapees. I knew nothing about their origins or how the FLDS separated from the Mormon church.

This book is a great read if you're at all interested in a history of the Mormon religion, as well as its fundamentalist offshoots. The book starts and ends with the story of the Lafferty brothers who brutally murdered their sister-in-law, Brenda and her 15-month-old daughter because "God told them to". It's a tragic story and shows how far religious fanatics can push their religion.

Sandwiched between the story of the Lafferty brothers, there is a fairly comprehensive history of the Mormon religion. They have an odd and violent history, but then again, most religious history tends to look odd to outsiders. However, the Mormon religion is a fairly new faith compared to other religions, so some of their origins are viewed under heavy scrutiny due to it being easier to fact-check certain things.

I picked up this book because I've read a couple books about women who have escaped the Fundamentalist LDS compounds and wanted a more thorough understanding of their core religion. Overall, this book gave a very interesting look into the religion, including what happens when people decide to take their beliefs too far.

Depraved by Bryan Smith (CBR-III #22)

Cannonball Read III: Book #22/52
Published: 2009
Pages: 336 (10,127 total so far)
Genre: Horror/Survival

Depraved is yet another entry into the backwoods-rednecks-who-kill-and-eat-people genre of horror. Basically, there's a whole town full of crazy rednecks of like to capture people passing through and torture them before they eat them.

I love a good horror story, but unfortunately this one was less than stellar. So for this review, I'm going to make a list of reasons why I didn't care for this book.

-The rape. Dear God THE RAPING. Seriously, I have never seen a book with so much rape in my life. There was male-on-male rape, female-on-female rape, male-on-female rape, female-on-male rape...you get the picture? And a lot of it was completely ridiculous - half the time, the victims are raping other prisoners that are trapped with them.

-There were way too many characters. The book kept cutting back and forth between like four sets of characters and it got really confusing. They're all pretty much being caught, raped and/or tortured, or running away from the crazy rednecks. So it was really hard to tell all the similar stories apart when you're constantly going being thrown in and out of different people's escape stories.

-There were also too many killing redneck families. Usually these types of stories have one crazy family, but this one had a whole community, so it was hard to keep track of all that as well.

-Apparently, this town has been kidnapping and murdering people for decades. So, how come all of a sudden EVERY SINGLE ONE of their captors escape at the same time without having anything to do with one another?

-I don't get the whole "supernatural" element they seemed to add randomly. There's this half demon/half man thing thrown in there for no apparent reason. It didn't add anything to the story at all.

-I hated the characters. I didn't care about a single one of them, probably because they were all just as bad as the "bad guys" who were kidnapping and torturing them. As soon as they escaped (or sometimes even before) they were all torturing/killing/raping people as well.

Depraved definitely lives up to it's title, but I'd suggest checking out Endurance by Jack Kilborn or Off Season by Jack Ketchum instead.

Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann (CBR-III #21)

Cannonball Read III: Book #21/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 240 (9,791 total so far)
Genre: Young Adult

This is one of those YA books that doesn't really translate to an adult audience as well as say, The Hunger Games. I think I would have liked it a bit better if I read it when I was 15 instead at 25. On the up side, it was a really quick read - I finished it in about an hour and a half.

Our main character, Kendall, lives in the tiny town of Cryer's Cross, Montana. When two of her classmates (out of 24 students in the entire high school) mysteriously disappear, everyone in town becomes suspicious. One of the missing students happened to be Kendall's best friend/sort-of boyfriend. Then there's this new guy and his sister that showed up right before the disappearances...blah blah. Kendall sort-of falls for the new guy, but still misses her other "boyfriend", and it turns into a typical YA romance novel.

I would say the book is 90% about Kendall's love life and her OCD (forgot to mention that I guess...but don't worry, they won't let you forget if you read the book). The other 10% is the "mystery" aspect that the cover wants to you believe is the focus. Basically, it's a YA romance with a haunted desk thrown in for good measure.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King (CBR-III #20)

Series: The Dark Tower Book VII
Cannonball Read III: Book #20/52
Published: 2004
Pages: 1072 (9,551 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

I finally finished the series! It was a little rocky in some parts, but am I glad I finished? Yes. Will I ever read this series again? Probably not. I'm going to review the final book first, then do a brief review of the entire series as a whole.

So, I was not a huge fan of the last couple books in this series. However, the final book in The Dark Tower series was what I wished the entire series had been. It flowed well and King didn't go off on hundred page tangents that had little to do with the central story. With each book, I just wanted Roland and his group to continue their journey to the Dark Tower without taking detours that took up entire books, such as the whole fighting with the wolves in The Wolves of the Calla or Rolands 600 page backstory. They covered more ground in this final book than I think half the other books combined.

One thing I love about Stephen King is his ability to bring his characters to life. Even if these weren't my favorite books ever, I really fell in love with the characters.

***SPOILERS! THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES***

Okay, so we have to talk about the ending. First of all, I love when authors aren't afraid to kill of main characters. It's dramatic and emotional. However, I HATED how Susannah just randomly left right before they got to the tower. She went all that way and sacrificed everything (including Eddie!) and then just leaves to go back to her world hours before they reach their goal? I'm not even going to comment on the stupid "afterward" with Susannah in NYC.

As for the very, very end: I kind of liked it. It was TOTALLY unexpected and yes, it might have been a total cop-out ending, but in a way it kind of worked. It did feel a little rushed and anti-climactic (really? He can just literally erase the bad guy at the end?), but it was completely unexpected if nothing else.

***END OF SPOILERS***

Okay, I already apologize for this being so long. What did I think of the entire series?

Honestly, it felt a little disjointed. Probably due to the fact that it took King something like 35 years to write the whole thing. I probably would have liked it better if it stayed more focused and cut out a lot of unneeded tangents. I rushed through a lot of that just to get back to the central story of the actual journey to the Dark Tower because that was the story I was invested in and wanted to read.

The series had it's ups and downs for me, but overall it's a decent read if for nothing else than to tell people you made it through the whole thing. I do hope they end up making the movies/tv series that's been rumored because I think this would be awesome on the screen.

Song of Susannah by Stephen King (CBR-III #19)

Series: The Dark Tower Book VI
Cannonball Read III: Book #19/52
Published: 2004
Pages: 560 (8,479 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

**Possible spoilers if you haven't read the previous books in the series.**

Six down, one to go! This is the next-to-last book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series which continues with Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake on the path to the Dark Tower.

Again, I found this book to be very dull. It was mostly filler so not much really happens. After leaving Calla Bryn Sturgis in The Wolves of the Calla, our heroes are transported back to New York City. However, Susannah and Jake end up in the year 1999 while Eddie and Roland arrive in 1977.

Basically, the whole book is everyone wandering around New York. Susannah is trying to keep her demon baby from being born while the others are searching for her. The only halfway interesting part was when Roland and Eddie meet up with Stephen King in 1977.

Thankfully, King kept this book to reasonable 500 pages (it's sad how short that sounds after reading this series) so it went quickly, but it was still very, very dull. Here's to hoping the final book is more interesting than the last few.

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (CBR-III #18)

Series: The Dark Tower Book V
Cannonball Read III: Book #18/52
Published: 2003
Pages: 960 (7,919 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

Wolves of the Calla is the fifth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It continues to story of Roland and his "ka-tet" (Eddie, Susannah, and Jake) as they journey to the Dark Tower.

They didn't really journey anywhere in this book since it all took place in Calla Bryn Sturgis (a town in Mid-world). The town has been plagued once per generation with a visit from "the Wolves". Calla Bryn Sturgis has an unusually high birthrate for twins (singles are very rare) and the Wolves come once every twenty or so years to steal one out of each set of twins and send them back later "roont" or mentally and physically damaged. Roland and the other gunslingers decide to help the town fight back against the Wolves - and to find out what they really are.

I'm sorry, but this book bored me to tears. It took me weeks to finish it because half the time I couldn't even bring myself to pick it back up. The whole battle with the wolves only lasted about ten pages out of the almost 1000 page book. Unfortunately, that was about the only interesting part to the book.

I guess now I'm moving on to the sixth book in the series. Here's to hoping the sixth and seventh are much more entertaining than these last two.