Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“In-Yo would say that the war was won by silenced and nameless women, and it would be hard to argue with her.”

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

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Nowhere Bingo 26: Novella Dark Corner Selection: January 2026 Chih is a young cleric from the Singing Hills monastery who travels around the country searching for stories and history. At the shores of Lake Scarlet, Chih finds the abandoned dwelling where the former Empress In-Yo (the titular Empress of Salt and Fortune) spent her many years in exile. Chih encounters the elderly Rabbit, one of the Empress’s former handmaidens, who tells Chih stories of her own past and how it intertwined with that of the […]

This book took me ten months to finish (double bingo)

Monstress, vol 1: The Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda

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CBR14 Bingo: Monster (there are several monsters in this story, both humanoid and not) Official book description: Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900’s Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steampunk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers. So total honesty here. […]

His wife is acting different and it smells like infidelity

Full spredning: en legeroman (Natural Causes) by Nina Lykke

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Elin has worked as a GP in the centre of Oslo for more than two decades. She’s married to Aksel, an orthopedist who seems obsessed with either cross country skiing in the winter and roller skis in the summer. They met during med school, and have lived in the same house long enough to see the little residential area that used to be full of idealistic and progressive residents become distinctly upper-middle class (as have they). They are now empty nesters after their two daughters […]

Teetering on the Edge of Fantastic

Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

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While buying a copy of Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble, Amazon alerted me that I “might also like” Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove. I’ve never read Swamplandia (although I’m totally going to now), and I knew nothing of Russell and her work, but the title sounded awesome and I’m always looking for quality speculative short fiction. I was not disappointed. Russell’s fabulous and her collection is as varied and weird and wonderful as the title suggests. Her work runs the gambit from vampires subsisting on lemons in […]

“Maybe the real question is why are your friends so turn-into-pigsable?” BINGO

Circe by Madeline Miller

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#CBR11 Bingo: Remix  (Would also work for Award Winner, Listicle (was on a ton of Best of 2018 lists) and/or Cannonballer Recommends) Official book description: In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft. When love drives Circe […]

Not what I was expecting

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Spoiler warning! In my explanation of what worked and didn’t for me in this story, I will be going into plot specific details. If you want to approach this story completely unspoiled, you may just want to read the first few paragraphs. Binti is the first of her people, the Himba, to be offered a place at the Oomza University, the finest in the galaxy. She pretty much runs away, knowing that her decision to take her place at the university might mean she is no […]



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