Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Too early for Worst Line of 2019? “My boobs looked nice and moundy.”

Spectre by Phaedra Weldon

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I bought this book at a going-out-of-business sale at a used bookstore, which is sad thing #1, and then the book itself was sad thing #2. It is TERRIBLE. It’s one of those urban fantasy series that are all the rage, and it has a nonsensical plot, unlikeable and derivative characters, and the dreadful writing. I had to put it down in December so I could finish it in January, just so I could tell y’all about it. Zoe is a wraith: she can astrally […]

Attention, fans of Tana French!

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I was all set to recommend this book wholeheartedly, but it falters in the last five pages or so, which is SO unfortunate. It was SO GOOD up till then. I will definitely check this author out again, to see if she can stick the landing, because the writing and the story was grand.   The MacBride family is a well-off, well-established academic family: father Rowan the dean of the local prestigious prep school and mother Lydia a local judge. Their children are smart and […]

As good as a story about vermin can be

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I haven’t read too many of the “gritty fairy tale reboot” genre, and I didn’t know when I started this that that’s what I was getting. China Mieville book? Sign me up! Gritty story about the Pied frakkin’ Piper? What the hell? But China didn’t let me down. The outline of the story is very familiar: protagonist gets in a scrape, finds out he’s important or chosen in some way, learns new skills and gets new allies, faces Big Bad. But it’s all told with […]

If you could have one fictional item, what would it be?

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If we’re talking about trench-coated dudes who do supernatural stuff, I’d rather read Felix Castor. But since Mike Carey seems to think he needs to be writing OTHER wonderful things and not giving me more Felix, Isaac Vainio is an okay substitute. He’s a libriomancer, using magic to pull things (laser pistols, healing potions, fire spiders, etc.) from books. This leads to many fun nods to favorites, and adds to the ever-growing to-read list. This is the second book, and it’s actually got a list […]



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