Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Too early for Worst Line of 2019? “My boobs looked nice and moundy.”

Spectre by Phaedra Weldon

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I bought this book at a going-out-of-business sale at a used bookstore, which is sad thing #1, and then the book itself was sad thing #2. It is TERRIBLE. It’s one of those urban fantasy series that are all the rage, and it has a nonsensical plot, unlikeable and derivative characters, and the dreadful writing. I had to put it down in December so I could finish it in January, just so I could tell y’all about it. Zoe is a wraith: she can astrally […]

Twas the night before Hogswatch

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

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It’s the night before Hogswatch and the Hogfather is missing. Without him delivering presents the little children will lose their belief and without it the sun will not come up. This calls for the intervention of one man – Death (well… one anthropomorphic personification anyway) – to masquerade as the Hogfather and help restore faith that the light will return. Yes, it’s a Discworld novel, buried midway through the series and featuring everybody’s favourite Grim Reaper. We’re also reunited with his grand-daughter Susan (currently acting […]

I liked this??????

A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1) by Sarah J. Maas

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I was already poised to like this book, past feelings about Sarah J. Maas aside. It’s a Beauty and the Beast/Ballad of Tam Lin hybrid retelling, and unless you make some sort of grave mistake, you’ve already got the outline of the story ready to go (tried and true over hundreds of years and variations), and it’s pretty hard to mess that up. And she doesn’t! I thought the story worked well as a combo B&B/Tam-Lin/original elements mish-mash. The first half is mostly Beauty and the […]

If you love fairy tales

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo

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I’ve always enjoyed fairy tales and became a bit obsessed once I discovered the darker original Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson collections.  This book evokes those tales but the stories have been spun in different and interesting directions, in part because it was created as a volume of fairy tales that the characters in the Grishaverse (the world setting Leigh Bardugo created) would know.  In 2012 Leigh’s publisher asked if she would write a prequel story for her first novel Shadow and Bone.  But instead […]

Rainbow Rowell is my happy place

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

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Rainbow Rowell books are the written equivalent of a weighted blanket and cup of tea. The moment I open one, I feel immediately comfortable and content. There is something inherently warm about her writing so much so that even when the characters are in tough situations, I’m just happy to be there. Carry On, well, carries on this grand tradition and I am just tickled pink that she wrote it. I’ll probably reread Fangirl this year because it was my first and always favorite of her books […]

Sorely Lacking Keanu Reeves. One Star.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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The year is 1897 and Bram Stoker is a bored businessmen who boosts his income by writing pulpy novels. The most famous of these, simply titled Dracula, was not an immediate hit, but would turn out to define Stoker’s legacy. This isn’t entirely undeserved, but outside of its snug historical pocket the novel doesn’t come across all that well. The story is well-known to nearly everyone, and I was quite surprised at how closely, at first, it follows the 1993 movie. And yet this film, […]



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