Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Nice Peek at Peter & Nightingale

The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch

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Well this was a nice look into Peter and Nightingale that for once did not involve The Faceless Man or Lesley. There is still something hovering over this book though that makes me think they may be trying to turn or did turn another character to their side and that’s getting a bit old to me. We do have Bev appearing in this one, but not center stage. We actually have Peter investigating mostly and worrying about his cousin Abigail who keeps pushing to learn […]

In which Squirrel Girl and puns are not enough

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel You Know It's True by Ryan North and Erica Henderson, et al

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  What do you get when you try to write a story with no main plotline, and instead focus entirely on a bunch of hardly connected side stories? The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel You Know It’s True is what. I should have known I wouldn’t like this much since the first volume annoyed me, but I wanted to see if things got any better; they did not. My biggest problem with Doreen and her companions (now she has several, and I’m not totally sure how […]

Lost in Translation to Graphic

Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel by Eoin Colfer, Giovanni Rigano, Paolo Lamanna

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I have read the original novel. In fact, I’ve also read all but the final novel in the original series. I was curious about the graphic novel adaptation. Given that the original Artemis Fowl is a YA novel, I figured a comic book style version would be reasonably similar. It both was and was not. The basic plot remains the same: devious genius Artemis and his loyal body guard/butler Butler devise a plan to kidnap a fairy for reasons which will not be revealed until […]

What to do when both the title and the back blurb are lies

John Dies at the End by David Wong

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I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked up John Dies at the End. I think maybe a little bit of Welcome to Night Vale mixed with Sandman Slim, and possible a bit of Men in Black. This book is not any of those things, either in combination or alone. I should also admit that I have not seen the movie, don’t remember having heard of it before, and definitely have no plans to ever watch it now. I did not really enjoy […]

Good Collection

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me by Kate Bernheimer

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There is a misnomer on the cover of this book. Some short stories in this volume have not been commissioned for the book. Several of them have appeared in various magazines and collections (some have appeared over a decade ago). This is okay, for this is the first time that they are all collected together and I hadn’t read any of them before. The purpose of this collection in part, according to Bernheimer, is to present fairy tales as an acceptable source of literature, at […]

Ugh, the house elves

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

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It’s essentially the first time reading these books since their initial release, and this was the first one I had to wait for (I thought HP was a trilogy when I picked up the first book), so I can say for sure it’s been 19 years since I first read what I remembered as my favorite installment. The story has the perfect blend of actual surprises and familiarity in a world with increasing stakes.  Rowling has been rightly praised for having the series grow with […]



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