Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About ElCicco

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Married, mom of two, history PhD, feminist. I've been participating in Cannonball Read since CBR4. I love to read, and writing reviews keeps me from reading without thinking. I feel like I owe it to the authors who entertain me to savor their creations. It's like slowing down and enjoying a delicious meal instead of bolting your food. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: ElCicco's Quick Questions interview.)

ElCicco's Reviews:

An important book that you’ve probably never heard of

How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino

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Cbr16bingo Vintage  This book, published in Japan in 1937, is a classic of Japanese literature and served as the inspiration for the Hayao Miyazaki film “The Boy and The Heron”. This translation by Bruno Navasky is the first time How Do You Live? has been translated into English, and it features an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Genzaburo Yoshino was born in 1899 and earned a degree in philosophy from Tokyo Imperial University. The Japan of his youth was becoming increasingly militaristic and even had “thought […]

Trigger happy

Vengeful: A Novel (Villains Book 2) by V.E. Schwab

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Cbr16bingo Part 2 Part 2 of VE Schwab’s Villains series, Vengeful, picks up 5 years after the events of book 1, Vicious. As with the previous volume, the story line cuts back and forth from present day to the past, slowly teasing out the events that have formed the main characters and that are leading up to what promises to be an explosive showdown between factions of EOs (ExtraOrdinaries, i.e. those with super powers) and civilian authority, most notably the new and secret task force […]

This one goes to a pretty dark place

Vicious: A Novel (Villains Book 1) by V.E. Schwab

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Cbr16bingo Part 1 This is the second novel I’ve read recently that deals with heroes and villains, and with the notion that “heroes” are actually pretty terrible people. Hench was a great read, and I was immediately sucked in to Vicious, too. In both stories, the “bad guys” actually are the people who seem to have a better sense of what is the right thing to do, but they still aren’t completely good people. This is a pretty dark novel and absolutely not for the […]

MysterFantsyMance

The Fox Wife: A Novel by Yangsze Choo

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Cbr16bingo Smash mystery/fantasy/romance = MysterFantsyMance The Fox Wife is a beautiful novel that combines mystery, fantasy and romance, and even some history. Set in China and Japan in the early 20th century, its main characters deal with the pangs of first love, lost love, obsessive love, and the loss of children against a backdrop of revolution and a world in the grip of major change. Author Yangsze Choo writes at the end of this story about her personal interest in the fox legends of China […]

“…superheroes, for all their good PR, were terrible for the world.”

Hench: A Novel by Natalie Zina Walschots

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Cbr16bingo cult Anna is good at crunching numbers and analysis, and she puts those skills to work as a henchman for any villain looking for help. But times are tough. She had had a pretty good gig going, but the thing about henching is that eventually superheroes destroy lairs, and that means layoffs. Anna along with her friends June and Greg find themselves back at the temp agency (there is a temp agency just for henchmen) desperate for some job, any job, that will pay […]

“When does who you’re pretending to be stop being a pretense and turn into who you really are?”

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

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Cbr16bingo Fiasco A guy wakes up, injured, on the floor of an evil looking castle room. Who did this to him? What evil force has been at work?? Who is responsible for the tacky decor??? Though his memories are mostly gone, he realizes he did it. He is a dark wizard and he somehow is responsible for all of it. It’s a dreadful conclusion to reach, and Gav (aka the Dread Lord Gavrax), looking around at his garishly evil castle and the way his goblin […]



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