Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

High-Stakes YA Quest With Great Ideas But a Bit of a Mixed-Bag in Execution

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

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Would you believe that I actually first heard about this YA book from an advertisement during the trailers section of a DVD I took out from the library? Actually, I’m pretty sure I saw it on more than one! How serendipitous to then receive it as a gift. Ultimately, while there were things I really liked about this book, there were also things that I didn’t. Overall, I liked it, but didn’t love it. Being that it is the first of a series, the question […]

Psychic powers? Check. Normal Life? Not on your life!

Mob Psycho 100 Volume 1 by One

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I was speaking with a coworker about a Netflix show he had seen a few episodes of. It was Mob Psycho 100. I found book one and thought “Why not? I only have a couple thousand other books, what is one more to read?” Beside it was something I had never heard of and it sounded interesting. Plus, I have wanted to read more manga. I can boil down this review to three words: One unique story. Yet, another way to describe this book is […]

“Neutrality is usually mean.” ~Sapkowski; “If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.” ~Rush

The Time of Contempt: The WItcher Book 2 by Andrzej Sapkowski

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The Time of Contempt is the second novel, fourth book, in Sapkowski’s Witcher series, and as with the previous novel, this one is full of political intrigue, war, and fighting. The overriding question for our main characters is whether, in a turbulent war-torn world, it is possible to maintain neutrality, and if not, is it possible to choose a side without becoming hateful and barbaric. The Empire of Nilfgaard is trying to take over world and is enjoying quite a bit of success in this […]

“It’s not what the Masquerade does to you that you should you fear . . . It’s what the Masquerade convinces you to do to yourself.”

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1) by Seth Dickinson

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The Traitor Baru Cormorant is probably the strongest (fictional) condemnation of colonialism that I’ve ever read. (And there have been some contenders.) I’ve been putting off writing a review of this book (and rating it) for a month now, because I was having such a hard time trying to sum up its complexities, and what it did to me as I was reading it. Mainly, though, this is exactly the reason I love fantasy and science fiction, because it can take real-world concepts like anti-colonialism,  […]

“Should we wake and find it gone. Remember this our favorite town”

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

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  This is another selection for which I’m extremely late to the party since it’s been getting good press since its 2011 publication.  I finally got The Night Circus from the library when the buzz for Erin Morgenstern’s most recent book “The Starless Sea” reached a fever pitch.  I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect because none of the book podcasts I listen to knew quite how to describe it.  It’s not quite fantasy, not quite magical realism and not quite romance.  It seems to […]

It’s sad when you outgrow old favorites

A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay

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Younger Me adored Guy Gavriel Kay. Older Crabby Me has tried reading him, but found him melodramatic. But when I saw one of his I’d never heard of on the library shelf, I decided to give it a try. It takes place in the same world as Sailing to Sarantium, but that one was never one of my favorites (Tigana or Fionovar all the way!), so I don’t remember aaaaanything about it except mosaics and melodrama. So I can’t even tell you if this one […]



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