Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But this didn’t feel like magic. It felt a lot older than that. It felt like music.”

Soul Music by Sir Terry Pratchett

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I don’t know what to say about this one, really. Its plagued me for over a week – I liked the book, I liked what it had to say about grief and memory… but I can’t quite put it together into a comprehensive opinion about the book. Here’s some thoughts I do have, though. The book in typical Pratchett and DEATH fashion splits the narrative – we have a fab foursome causing wizards to shake, rattle and roll, and managing to bring some broken furniture […]

Agony and Relief: Birth Order as Curse

Secondborn by Amy A. Bartol

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“It’s no good hating them. They can’t feel it, and it will only make you bitter.” — p. unknown  

Fun closed murder-mystery with a lot of men

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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I am so annoyed at this book. First of all it was way too long. It should have been edited down, not just for length but also several times there was language so floral that it took me completely out of the mystery. I mean stuff like this: “Thankfully, the leaves and twigs are so demoralized by the earlier rain they don’t have the heart to cry out beneath my feet.” Shut up. Just say what you mean. Urh. And every.single.character was a man. And […]

Does what it says on the tin.

Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History, #1) by George R.R. Martin

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First thing about this book that you should know going in: this is not a novel. It is a history book, written in the style of a history book, from the POV of a Maester in-world. It is a made-up history about a made-up world, but it is still history, and there’s a lot of it. If you do not like reading history, or fake history, you will not like this book. It is very similar to A World of Ice and Fire, which was […]

Days of Our Trying Not to Get Humanity Blown into Smithereens

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

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By the time I was not even halfway through Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente I thought, “This is one screwed up book.” As one reviewer on Amazon put it, “it is a barrage of fluff” (more later). It is all these strung together words just to put words together. They are not run-on sentences but run-off-the-page-turn-left-at-the-corner-and-keep-going-on sentences. The story, once you get into it, is easy enough to understand: a has been singer (as one of my coworkers put it, “a Meatloaf like performer” […]

It’s Not the Destination, It’s the Journey

The 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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This was reviewed recently on Cannonball Read and it piqued my interest enough that I not only purchased it, I moved it way up the TBR pile. It is an excellent novel that is let down by it’s execution. The concept is great, the theme is thought provoking and well executed but there are moments where the plot needed tightening and there is one section where the gross prejudices of the author come out in ways that almost stopped me from reading (and stopped many […]



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