Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Surely, eventually, I'll read the number of books I sign up for.

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Simon Snow’s Adventures Come to an End

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

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I didn’t find Wayward Son quite as engaging as Carry On,  possibly because I was already familiar with the world of Simon Snow, or maybe I’m just not a fan of road trip stories. I still enjoyed reading it, and I did eventually feel fully engaged in the novel. It just took a little while for me to get there. The novel is set about a year or so after the events of Carry On. Penny and Baz are finishing up their first year of university, while […]

A Challenge to the Hero-Villain Dichotomy

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

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Hench is set in a world with a lot of heroes and a lot of villains, and children are tested at puberty to see if they have any powers so that they can be trained to be – ideally – heroes. Anna, the first person narrator of Hench, has been freelancing as a hench for villains for about a year. She’s not particularly invested in the work, but it’s a way to pay the bills because the capitalist dystopia we currently live in is still […]

Chosen Ones and Their Problems

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

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Rainbow Rowell was inspired by her own Simon Snow novel and fanfiction that she created in her novel Fangirl, so she decided to go ahead and turn it into its own book (now a trilogy). Both paying homage to subverting other Chosen One and fantasy novels, as well as fanfiction, Simon Snow is the story of a mage grappling with being the Chosen One while also living his day-to-day life with its attendant relationship dramas. In particular, it is expected that he will save the […]

What Is Reality?

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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This was so good! It’s set in the past and the future and jumps around in time. It follows seemingly disparate threads and characters who are tied together by their experiencing an odd event in which there is a flash of darkness and the sound of violin music. A character named Gaspery shows up and talks to each of the people who have experienced this event. There is time travel and conversations about the simulation hypothesis. There are meta elements, like a character who wrote […]

“There Is Never Only One, Of Anyone”

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

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Cat’s Eye is a story about friendship, family, memory, and, especially, trauma. It follows the life of Elaine from childhood through about age 50. Like The Blind Assassin, also by Margaret Atwood, this novel alternates between past and present and is primarily set in the past. Most of the novel occurs when Elaine is about age 8-10. Elaine and her parents and older brother had a nomadic lifestyle during Elaine’s early childhood. Her father is an entomologist who travels around looking at bugs. When Elaine […]

The Fellowship Diverges and Reconverges

The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

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Spoilers ahead, I guess, for those who aren’t familiar with how all of this ends. Part 1 (or Book III as it’s called in the book, because each of the 3 novels is divided into 2 books) of The Two Towers begins by following Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas as they try to track Merry and Pippin, who have been taken by Orcs. Sadly, Boromir died in the Orc battle, though not without putting up a strong fight. We discover that Gandalf lives. We meet the […]



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