Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“All stories are love stories if you love stories.”

The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer

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I can’t really tell whether or not it was a good or bad thing that I was able to predict every single twist* and reveal in this book, well before I should have been able to. I was entertained, so I guess good? Or it doesn’t matter. I’m just not used to being able to do that. So we’ll table that for now. Anyway, I went into this one grudgingly and with a bad attitude; I will admit that. And then as the book went […]

Interesting From an Intellectual Standpoint

Making History by K. J. Parker

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Well this certainly had a unique premise. Our nameless narrator, top in his field of linguistics, along with 11 other top-of-their-field scholars, is voluntold by the tyrannical king of Aelia to create a city. The king wants an excuse to attack a neighboring country that won’t get pushback by the citizens of Aelia, so the group has to literally design and build an “ancient” city that can be “discovered,” complete with language, art, etc. While this is technically a fantasy, that label is based on […]

“What is a river but an open throat; what is water but a voice?”

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

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“The River Liss runs north to south, and its waters brim with grammar.” What an absolutely musical opening sentence. I had to stop and reread it several times just to let it sink in. Amal El-Mohtar’s writing hugs the line between poetry and prose, and results in a truly delicious reading experience. This novella, based on the English ballad “The Bonny Swans,” tells the story of two sisters, Esther and Ysabel. Their family tends the willow trees that grow along the magical river Liss, and […]

A River Red with Blood by John Connolly

A River Red with Blood by John Connolly

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Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Trigger warning: We hear about the rape of girls and women, but thankfully we don’t get a play by play. Or we may have, I won’t lie, I started skipping that part of the book. I feel like this is my fault. I said in my last Charlie Parker review I was sick and tired of the mystery of Charlie and his dead daughter Jennifer. I didn’t care […]

The Children by Melissa Albert

The Children by Melissa Albert

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Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review. I didn’t really enjoy Albert’s Hazelwood, but had hopes for this one, but again, I think she has issues with one with the book premise sounding great, and then the execution not really working. I had similar issues with the characters not really drawing you in as you read. I know I was supposed to see Guinevere’s mother Edith as  dark figure (she gets mentioned as being similar […]

The River of Silver: A nice reward for finishing a wonderful series

The River of Silver: Tales from the Daevabad Trilogy by Shannon Chakraborty

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After taking a brief rest from tearing through Empire of Gold, I took a much more gentle pace through River of Silver. River of Silver is a series of short stories from multiple character points of view that stretches across the whole scope of the original trilogy. The stories are arranged chronologically from decades before we start City of Brass through to just after the ending of Empire of Gold. There are a few stories from the trilogy’s main protagonists, but mostly the stories are […]



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