Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Which World is Really the Game?

Noble Roots by Drew Hayes

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One of my least favorite fantasy adventure tropes is the tournament arc; often there’s virtually no plot, no character development, just a lot of fights with miraculous and/or unexpected power-ups. About half of Drew Haye’s Noble Roots, books 5 of the Spells, Swords, & Stealth series, goes here. I suppose it was kind of inevitable that this happen since the series is based on two premises: what happens when you focus on the NPCs in a D&D-style game and their lives when they aren’t interacting […]

Found Family is Just My Favorite Trope, Forever

It's Called A Flush by Deniigiq

Flush: Chatlog by Deniigiq

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My brother is an OG-we-had-the-Darth-Vadar-Cases-for-our-action-figures Star Wars fan. One of the only things my brother says he will never forgive my mom for is falling asleep in the theater when she watched A New Hope for the first time: In her defense, she was 16, and leaving the house childless for the first time since my brother was born, so she was pretty tired. She remembers the words crawling up the screen, a ship, and that’s all folks. New moms everywhere can understand. I know […]

Extra Reading March 2022

Batman: The Killing Joke by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips

The Big East: Inside the Most Entertaining and Influential Conference in College Basketball History by Dana O'Neil

In The Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero

The Banks by Roxane Gay, Ming Doyle (Illustrator)

One Night, New York by Lara Thompson

The Secret Lives of Married Women by Elissa Wald

Lost and Found in Harlem by Delia C. Pitts

Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly

Sadie by Courtney Summers

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These are the books I finished in the month of March in which I didn’t have time or words to elaborate on… Batman: The Killing Joke *** Two of my favorites team up for a Batman prose novel? Yes! But the end result is just okay. Interestingly enough, I think both writers do a better job with the random Gothamites than they do with the Caped Crusader and his primary nemesis. You’re fine just reading Alan Moore’s legendary graphic novel. The Big East: Inside the […]

All right, I was a witch. Does it matter?

Circe by Madeline Miller

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The witch, Circe, turns up in the Odyssey, famous for turning half of Odysseus’ men into pigs, before changing them back again and giving Odysseus aid in his ever longer journey home from Troy. Circe, her island, and her interactions with Odysseus take up a single chapter of the Odyssey, and from this Miller weaves a much more satisfying tale in this 2018 novel. Circe is the eldest and least-regarded of four children of the Titan Helios and sea nymph Perse. She grows up as […]

I didn’t think I liked romance novels

Dress Up In You by MsKingBean89

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The last book I reviewed for CBR13 was a work of Harry Potter fanfic called All the Young Dudes (ATYD). I had submitted my “best/worst of CBR13” list before finishing ATYD, which is a shame because if I had waited, All the Young Dudes would have absolutely been one of my best of the year. I loved MsKingBean89’s imaginative, romantic and tragic story of Remus Lupin and his relationship with Sirius Black, and during the holidays I went back in to AO3 to see if […]

Emotions are Difficult, an Alternative Title to this SamBucky Fanfic Series

Questionable Communication Skills series by Abhorsenbranwen

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I have kept up with the fanfic habit I gained in 2020, although I have slowed down a bit, partly because my ability to focus on traditionally published books has increased, and partly because I have not been keeping up with one of the television shows that fed most of my 2020 consumption. But one of the wonderful things about fanfic is there is so bloody much of it that whatever small thought might be scratching at the back of your mind, or story thread […]



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