Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

a now very-long review consisting of an original and retrospective take

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

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Re-read July 2026 CBR Bingo: Clown, because 1) I am missing clown to completely a bingo (also yay! this completes one bingo!) and 2) I do think Clownish describes a lot of Elliot through this book, in a way that probably isn’t fair to him because he really is a misfit, which is also in the category. A very long dated re-read, entirely from the recommendation of my friend. I was idly looking through my friend Lydia’s bookshelf when visiting her this summer and saw […]

lacks the heft needed for the subject matter

Into the Blue by Emma Brodie

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CBR Bingo: Craft, because much of this is about the Craft of Acting and how its pursuit irrevocably ties together our main characters. Clearly I am back on the reading train and angling to make up for lost time. I’m not entirely sure where I got this recommendation from–I think it was a Goodreads one–but it’s definitely a certain type of book for a certain type of reader and I don’t think that reader is me. Hence I’m being a bit kinder in the overall […]

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame: Would have been more fun as a full novel

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang

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This novella tells the story of how Kunlin Yeva becomes the masked Guildknight of Mithrandon, a dragon slayer of incredible power and great renown, and of her assignment in a kingdom that worships dragons instead of slaying them. As a teenager, Yeva stops a young wyrm from killing her and her sister, and in the process shows that she has a magical predisposition for dragon slaying. Her father sends her to the capital to join the guildknights. She is trained and becomes the most lethal […]

Zomromcom: Zombies and vampires and love, oh my

Zomromcom by Olivia Dade

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Even after the Harlot’s Bay experience, the newest of Olivia Dade’s works sounded interesting. This takes place in a version of our world where creatures from myth and legend have been revealed to be real by the fact that technology is everywhere and they can no longer hide from cameras and videos. Vampires, werewolves, trolls, fae, witches, etc are all real, and have been forced to start integrating into standard human society. As a result, non-powered humans did some dodgy experiments on themselves to try […]

A Long and Speaking Silence: “Certain Compassion. A wish for kindness, a hope for the future…., and what everyone hopes to find on a journey far from home.”

A Long and Speaking Silence by Nghi Vo

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CBR Bingo: Steal – One of the characters, Ha Beili won’t stop stealing things. In her defense, she doesn’t have anything or a job so obtaining necessities through standard means isn’t really available to her. This entry in the Singing Hills Cycle is one of the few, if not the only one, that has sufficient context clues to place it in the timeline of Cleric Chih’s adventures with some amount of confidence. Chih has only recently become a full cleric, and this is one of […]

Tusk Love: D&D and romance, what’s not to love?

Tusk Love by Tea Guanzon

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This book is both precious and horny, delightful and strange. It is a tie-in with a D&D actual play. This is the IRL book version of a fictional book that exists in a Critical Role campaign. Even without that context, I think that Tusk Love is a good story. Guinevere is supposed to appear like your standard DID (damsel in distress). However, she also has a magical secret. She harbors an enthusiastic fire spirit that she is able to keep at bay, but does not understand […]



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