Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

I was right to kidnap this book.

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

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I kidnapped this book.  I’ve read previous Stevenson books, and enjoyed them, and though I purchased it for my sister for Christmas, when the time came I found myself unable to wrap it or hand it over.  Instead, I did what any sensible sister would do in these circumstances. I had Mr GirlWhoGotOverIt tie the book up in light rope, took a polaroid of it, and, like Tom Hanks in The Burbs (but with more nefarious purpose), wrote a note reading “[Walter]: I have your […]

Highly enjoyable and very cute

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (the UK) Celine Bangura and Bradley “Brad” Graeme used to be best friends until Brad callously decided to ditch Celine and get with the popular crowd (this is Celine’s interpretation of past events, anyway). Now, every time they are near each other, they trade insults or compete academically. Their mothers are still best friends, though, which means they keep hearing glowing accounts of any accomplishment the other has achieved. One of Celine’s dreams is to become a lawyer, […]

It Takes a Village. To save you from the Fae.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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Emily Wilde is a Cambridge Professor who specializes in Dryadology, the study of Faeries. This includes all kinds of Faeries, from cute little Brownies to the more fearsome “Hidden Ones” who are known to steal people away to the world of Faerie. She has been traveling the world, attempting to create the world’s first Encylopaedia of Faeries, and she only has one more place to visit, the frozen town of Hrafnsvik, in the country of Ljosland. Unfortunately, the town is incredibly insular and Emily has […]

Maiden voyages

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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For my maiden voyage in Cannonball Reads, it is a happy coincidence that my first review is for A Restless Truth by Freya Marske which is a book about a maiden on a voyage both literal and metaphoric. This is the second book in a series about an alternate Edwardian England that involves magicians, a murder mystery, and queer romance. Which is to say, entirely my cup of tea. The first book, A Marvellous Light which I also thoroughly enjoyed, centers on the adventures of Robin and Edwin. This […]

“All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.”

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

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It’s a novel about unbearable loss and terrible grief that feels deeply, vibrantly alive. The language is spare, yet lush, because to describe the world rightly can only be lavish, even when the words are simple. A monkey’s paws are described as “black and shiny, like boot leather, with nails like apple pips.” A feverish child’s face is covered with a “sheen of sweat making it glimmer like glass.” A woman in labor sees her child being born, “turning, twisting, slick, like a water creature, […]

A perfect way to start the year

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

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This book was the best way I could think of to start my reading year. After going through a bit of a reading slump the last couple of months of 2022, I awoke on the first of January  to the first of Brandon Sanderson’s secret projects in my inbox, and I was so excited to get to it, I was done with it by January 3rd. For those of you who don’t know, Brandi Sandi spent his lockdown year (the year I spent in despair […]



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