Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Please, DON’T send in the clown

Hamlet is Not OK by R.A. Spratt

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As a teen (at least 13 and up), Hamlet is Not OK by R.A. Spratt and I would have been friends. This is because I, too, would have had some of the naive ideas about violence and mental health our main character has. Now, I still am not keen on violence as the solution and I understand the difficulties of mental health, but if you change Hamlet (and SPOILER, they do) you have changed practically everything that has come after that was inspired by it, […]

When Sparks Fly

Forgive-Me-Not: A Graphic Novel by Mari Costa

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Forgive-Me-Not: A Graphic Novel by Mari Costa has enough humor to counter the seriousness of being a changeling, the human who is stolen away and the dangers of the Fae realm. The story is pretty familiar, with simple but detailed images to move the story along as much as the text/story itself, with a Damsel in Distress (DID), her hero (who is a heroine) and bad guys.  The Princess is not a Princess but a daughter of the Fae Realm. Her Human Counterpart has made […]

1984 meets Dictatorship meets Spies meets one screwed up world

The Shadower by Peter Hoey and Maria Hoey

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When a book is a real gut punch, I can have a hard time writing a review that does that feeling justice. How do I tell others (in writing therefore, not using facial expressions) how I got a sick feeling in my stomach? How I was shocked, amazed, happy, sad, confused, and had a full understanding of things sometimes all at once? When I started The Shadower by Peter Hoey and Maria Hoey I didn’t think I would have that issue, but by the end […]

I knew pets were trouble!

Game of Pets Book 1: The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Aaron Blabey

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While I can’t say Game of Pets Book 1: The Boy Who Knew Too Much LEFT our main character hanging off the wheel of the giant monster truck (which he actually was at one point) it does leave you hanging as the cliffhanger ending ends with a police chase and the fate of the world in the hands of a kid, a talking (arm and legless) axolotl, and a crazy pet shop/monster truck owner. Aaron Blabey, you are one weird person. An AXOLOTL? Pets as […]

Hobb-a-thon Part II

Dragon Keeper: The Rain Wilds Chronicles Book 1 by Robin Hobb

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cbr18bingo – One I have been holding off on starting this part of Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series. The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy and The Tawny Man Trilogy were all fantastic, but when I looked at Dragon Keeper, the first of the four novels in The Rain Wilds Chronicles, I was a little bummed out. It looked like the characters I knew and loved from her previous novels weren’t going to get much page time and a whole new set of […]

Ferrante did it better

The Book of Goose: A Novel by Yiyun Li

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Cbr18bingo – Bird Almost as soon as I started reading The Book of Goose, I was reminded of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Both Ferrante’s series and Li’s The Book of Goose feature impoverished girls living in post-WWII Europe. Both feature a friendship that can be competitive and dysfunctional. And both focus on the creative process of writing as well as the strains on childhood friendships when people grow up and apart. I loved Ferrante’s series. I liked this novel, but I might have liked it […]



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