Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Art Is Power

Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li

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I’m not sure I can discuss this book coherently. I’ve started and stopped and rewritten this review so many times I’m starting to feel dizzy. How do I convey the perfect writing, the depth of emotion, the complex characters, the history and meaning and joy and sorrow Grace D. Li has managed? In a freaking heist novel??!? The audacity! Let’s start with the basic plot: steal back the five bronze zodiac animal heads that were looted after the burning of Beijing’s Old Summer Palace and are […]

Both more finance AND mystery than I expected

Trust by Hernan Diaz

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When Trust was longlisted for the Booker prize, it was described as a “literary puzzle about money, power and intimacy” – and that’s quite apt for this novel. By the time I got around to reading it, I had all but forgotten any previous descriptions I had read about the novel, and thus the amount of talk about the 1929 (among others) market crash was a bit unexpected. Because this is a novel and not a textbook, the finance talk eventually gives way to a highly […]

“Just a girl and her giant stuffed elk head”

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

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The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher. I really enjoyed this. I read one of the author’s other horror novels The Twisted Ones last year and really enjoyed that one until the end, but then it sort of lost me a little bit. But this one? This one had me all the way through and I felt that it really stuck the landing. Rest of the review at my reading journal dreadpiratekel @ dreamwidth

This book only has 480 ratings over on Goodreads, and I think it deserves more readers!

The House in the Orchard by Elizabeth Brooks

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I was actually given this book for free in my first Aardvark Book Club box, so it wasn’t one I was really interested in reading, but a free book is a free book, so I thought I’d give it a shot. And I liked it! It was a little bit messy in terms of pacing, and the blurb is pretty misleading, but I was so angry by the end of the book, I have to give it props, because it managed to get me invested […]

Oh how funny! Mom just ate someone’s body part.

The Night Eaters: Volume One: She Eats the Night by Marjorie M. Liu

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This weekend I devoured several titles. I was finally in the mood to read and the goodies I found were easy enough to read, even if they had a lot going on. And in fact, most of them deserve a second read (at least) as there was a lot going on and things probably were missed. And The Night Eaters: Volume One: She Eats the Night was one of the most-going-onest graphic novels I have read. This Marjorie M. Liu graphic novel is not for […]

A great friend digs the empty grave up with you

Hell Phone Book One by Benji Nate

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I have read three of Benji Nate’s work and have three to go (one is due in May 2023, so just two current). And each one is more bizarre and kookier than the last. Yet, I keep reading. Maybe it is like a car wreck, you do not want to know, but you must know, too. You cannot look away. And Hell Phone Book One is no different. However, this time it does flow a bit more logically and has a base to it that […]



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