Cannonball Read 12

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> Tag: Amor Towles

Samantha’s hand were still red from the cold, the skin over her knuckles taut and dry.

Ark by Veronica Roth

Emergency Skin by NK Jemisin

Forward by Blake Crouch

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Mostly I got this collection because I was interested in some short stories for walks and I like the mix of authors in general. Blake Crouch tells us in the intro/outro to each story the basic purpose of the collection, and like all such genre anthologies, it’s a mixed bag. The audio productions are really good with Evan Rachel Wood, Jason Isaacs, Rosa Salazar, David Harbour, Steven Strait, and Janina Gavankar are the readers of these stories. Each come in around an hour and all […]

The Forward Collection, ed. by Blake Crouch, was a fun success, except for that one story I didn’t like at all.

Ark by Veronica Roth

Summer Frost by Blake Crouch

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

The Last Conversation by Paul Tremblay

You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles

Randomize by Andy Weir

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I’m putting all my reviews of this collection in one post. Blake Crouch commissioned a bunch of his writer friends to bring him stories about some aspect of near-future technology, and how that might affect life on earth. These are what they gave him (along with Crouch’s own story). “Ark,” by Veronica Roth – 3.5 STARS This is miles above the last book I read from Roth in quality. It seems she’s learned how to be subtle, which is good! This first story in the […]

A great debut–but I was spoiled by his other book.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

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After reading and enjoying A Gentleman in Moscow, I picked up Rules of Civility, a book I’d checked out from the library before but never actually read.  Tl;dr: It was good, but not as good as Moscow.   I think Gentleman in Moscow corrected some of the things that annoyed me in this book, was slightly better edited, and had more of a “punch” that resonated long after finishing the book. The story is about Katie Kontent, and her life in New York in the late […]

A slow read in a slow week…

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

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This book was absolutely perfect for a post-Christmas rush day of doing literally nothing but reading. It’s based in Russia, spanning the 1920s-50s and takes place primarily inside a luxury hotel. The protagonist, Count Alexander Rostov, has been living there for some time, but after being tried by the state on the heels of the Bolshevik revolution (for writing some questionable poetry), he is sentenced to house arrest in that same hotel for the rest of his life. He is stripped of the suite befitting […]

Third Act Weighs Down Short Story

You Have Arrived at Your Destination by Amor Towles

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Well not too much to say about this one except the third act one of the characters went on about actually weighed down this book a lot. I loved the concept (able to use an algorithm to choose what path an unborn child will possibly lead) but after the character of Sam lives the corporation the book just got messy. “You Have Arrived at Your final Destination” follows Sam whose wife Annie has talked him into having a child via a corporation called Vitek which […]



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