Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Beauty & Cruelty

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

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After the herculean doorstop that was Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings, I needed a fast, fun, and gripping read. So I turned to Holly Black, whose Folk of the Air trilogy I gobbled up in about 72 hours over Thanksgiving break. The Darkest Part of the Forest did not disappoint, and I blew through it in a day. Written a few years before Folk of the Air, it was fun to see how Black was playing around with the themes and premises that she later expanded […]

“What a fool. What a destructive, romantic, ridiculous act. It was always a certain kind of ass who approached love like that”.

Harrow the Ninth: The Locked Tomb trilogy vol. 2 by Tamsyn Muir

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Spoiler free review of Harrow the Ninth. I started Harrow at the wrong time.  When I began in mid-February, I didn’t know my dog was about to have an emergency that would lead to his passing within a month.  I couldn’t focus and the book deserved more attention.  I put it down for a long time and read comfort fluff.  When I picked Harrow back up again I would read it off and on.  One night I was determined to finish it, stayed up way too […]

Getting Back in the High Fantasy Game

The Way of Kings: Book One of the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson

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I will preface this review by saying this kind of writing used to be my jam. I inhaled massive high fantasy series in high school and college, exclusively reading Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Mark Lawrence, Patrick Rothfuss,  and GRR Martin. But then I joined CBR and started reading more widely. I fell out of love with the war-heavy, white male centric doorstops and found a new home in magical realism and the glory of a one-book wonder. Aside from rereading Tolkien, I’ve had a hard […]

Avoiding the end but it’s not quite the end

The Unbound Empire by Melissa Caruso

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I have noticed a rather troublesome habit about myself that when I get to the conclusion of a series, I tend to put off reading it because I don’t really want things to end, but this is a problem because of the risk of spoilers. I blasted through books one and two of the rather generically named Swords and Fire series maybe a year ago, and finally not too long ago, I finally have gotten to book three, The Unbound Empire. I knew a little […]

The Wheel of Time (Part II)

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan

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Part I can be found here. The Shadow Rising (3.5 stars) I’m going to start off with a plot summary, but I’m doing that for a reason. So, if you don’t want spoilers – skip the next few paragraphs. At the end of The Dragon Reborn, Rand took the sword Callandor from the Stone of Tear (thus continuing the allusions to King Arthur), which further cemented his place within the prophecies as the Dragon Reborn. And that’s where we pick up here, in The Shadow […]

When you only read a handful of pages, but still like what you read, but it’s okay as it is a book to read like that.

You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton!: Monster Motivations to Move Your Butt and Get You to Do the Thing by Chuck Wendig

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I was on the salesfloor this morning, doing a task that I occasionally do, surrounded by the books of the counter. You know those fun little distractions at the checkout. The ones that you pick up for hostess gifts, for that one person you never can buy for, and that “I need a treat and it might be Champlain Chocolate [so yummy], but my waist will thank me for a book instead” books. After finishing my task, instead of taking my normal route back to […]



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