Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Reverso Poems

Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

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From Marilyn Singer: A reverso is a poem with two halves. In a reverso, the second half reverses the lines from the first half, with changes only in punctuation and capitalization — and it has to say something completely different from the first half. And they claim the right to say they invented the form. Okay, I’m a smidgen skeptical as you’re telling me in the thousands of years of poetry she is the first to think of this? But, you know what? Who cares […]

“Love was seeing the truth of a person. Love was keeping faith that the best version you saw was the truest.”

Better in Black: Ten Stories of Shadowhunter Romance by Cassandra Clare

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Basically what it says on the tin: ten short stories set in the Shadowhunter Universe, each centered on one couple (or throuple, in one case.) They are as follows: The Good Storm (Will Herondale/Tessa Grey, set during their honeymoon.): So trite, so overblown. Cassie, if you can’t write sex scenes that don’t read like they’re from a bodice-ripper, don’t have them at all. Also, maybe keep track of the ages of your characters; why did you write a fifteen year old sounding more like a […]

Amal El-Mohtar Excels at Writing Fairy Tales

Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar

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I really enjoyed this collection of short stories and poems, most of which are based in science fiction and fantasy and heavily influenced by themes of oppression and freedom. Some of them hit more than others, as was expected, with my clear favorites being the ones that had the most fairy tale-like feel. I loved that sort of “tip of my tongue” feeling for one of them because El-Mohtar was drawing from existing tales, and I appreciated the way she could make them feel like […]

After Midnight by Daphne Du Maurier

After Midnight by Daphne Du Maurier

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I have to say this collection was fantastic from beginning to end. It has a great introduction by Stephen King and then you just get to Daphne Du Maurier doing what she does best. All of the stories are five stars in my opinion. The Blue Lenses-We follow a married woman whose sight is restored, but what she sees now, shows something ominous could be in her future. I thought the ending was a great gut punch and you can guess at what happens to […]

An account of life

I Won't Pretend These Missiles Are Stars: Life in Iran During the 12-Day War by Tehran's Cartoonist Collective / The Cartoonist Collective

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The short stories inside of I Won’t Pretend These Missiles Are Stars by Tehran’s Cartoonist Collective deal with the weeks of war between Israel and Iran. Set in Iran, each of the people giving their story has a different way of dealing or not dealing with the events around them. Some worry about the big picture (death), others worry that they never got to wear the special outfit to their presentation. Each author has a unique way of showing what was and wasn’t important to […]

They go into the woods and do what?

An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr

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In the lives of these two young people there was no middle distance. The result was bound to be either love or hate, and in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Bodman it was hate of the most bitter and arrogant kind. ― Robert Barr, An Alpine Divorce The term ‘Alpine Divorce’ came to my attention a few weeks ago. Last month, an Austrian man was convicted of manslaughter after leaving his girlfriend behind so he could get help during their mountain climbing expedition. I […]



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