Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

the challenges of an author’s back catalogue

The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles

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CW: suicides (in the past), suicidal actions/ideation (but it’s made clear that it’s a curse which is making the character feel that way), homophobia, mentions of assault, mentions of incest, magic which saps a character’s life energy, and also some magical manipulation of emotions which I found hard to get behind Bereft of Will Darling, I thought I’d give Charles’ back catalog a perusal. While I really enjoyed this novel, there’s a central premise that I felt it hard to get over. As such, I’ve […]

I know I’m finicky about SA stories but still…

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

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While I do think this book was major struggle city to get through for numerous plot-related issues, I’d like to give my standard disclaimer around books featuring South Asian protagonists or based on South Asian mythology: I am, unfortunately, a harder grader than I might be for stories based on other cultures. I don’t know what it is! I think it’s because I know these epic tales very well, and I can see the plot points that have always made me go ughhhmehhhhehhhhewww, and I […]

A fantastic magic system weighed down by an unnecessary narrative structure

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

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Tea (pronounced “tee-uh”) is a young girl who, up until her older brother’s funeral, was largely unremarkable. But, in a moment of grief, she raised her brother from the dead. This marked her a bone witch, a witch who can work with dark magic to not only raise the dead but command daeva, monsters that roam the world wreaking havoc on innocent civilians. Upon demonstrating her abilities, she is located by an established and powerful bone witch named Lady Mykaela who takes her under her […]

short review but trust me I adored this book

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

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It’s funny–I really liked this book, but find myself struggling a bit to remember what happened specifically in it. I remember the broad strokes and the feeling of finishing it very well, but not so much the details of the plot. As a set up: we’re still focusing on the travails of Essun, orogene par none (maybe), and the counteracting travails of Nessun, her daughter, orogene of renown. What really set this novel apart from the prior entry was the emphasis on ‘how we got here,’ aka […]

it was a mistake to not have the second one of these queued up

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

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Without that twist from the first book–and without having another large twist in this one, which would end up feeling a bit gimmicky–it’s inevitable that this second entry in the The Broken Earth series would be a bit anticlimactic in comparison. And true to form, it sort of is. My hopes that the second person narration would fade away didn’t happen, but the second person narrator (driven by the character’s growing knowledge) does get more omniscient such that it’s less frustrating to read, and at times feels […]

finally got around to reading this one, very worthwhile

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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So first, a story about this book from way back in…2017? 2018, maybe. I’m in the middle of interviewing for a new job, and am close to the end of the final day of interviews. The interviewer happens to know my former boss and so we were vibing, sharing stories. He proceeds to ask me what I do for fun, signalling that the interview is almost up. No problemo, I think, time to pull out the ol’ standby–I read, I say, I’m a reader. What’s […]



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