Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson

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CBR14Bingo: Bird — in the sense that the main character is in flight first from the Russian Revolution and then is in a more metaphorical flight through her feelings  This was such a wonderful book, I absolutely loved it! I had read Eva Ibbotson’s children’s books when I was younger, in particular The Secret of Platform 13, but I missed that she also did young adult historical romances, which was a huge oversight on my part. Based off how much I loved this book, I […]

An excellent book but not my cup of tea

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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I read Gods of Jade and Shadow and thought it was enjoyable, so I was excited to read Mexican Gothic.  I’m not sure my expectations were met. Noemi is a socialite in the upper-class of 1950s Mexico City. She goes to parties, she flirts, she wears beautiful gowns because she actually enjoys them, and she wants to go university against her family’s wishes. Noemi’s life gets upended when her father asks her to go check on her cousin Catalina who has written a strange and disturbing […]

Things are looking up.

Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism by David Nickel

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OK, I’m not really sure where to start with this. Eutopia by David Nickel* is genuinely one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read (in a good way). Thematically it’s about eugenics and creating a super race, but writing that out doesn’t at all capture the story in which those themes are explored. Because this story is just freaking crazy. In 1911, Jason Thistledown’s life is turned upside down when his hometown of Cracked Wheel, Montana is decimated by a nameless plague. Because it’s winter, he has to keep […]

In America the quirk was that people were things.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

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Social justice warrior alert: this was a really tough one, and also should be mandatory reading. I grew up in Canada, and stories about the American Civil War and the Underground Railroad have always been fairly romantic to me: good and caring citizens resisted the status quo and helped shuttle slaves from town to town until they were safely out of harm’s way in the North, often fabulous Canada where we were the cooler (haha) neighbor, and where former slaves could habeas their own damn […]

This is war. Chaos. Chance. Death.

Golden Son (The Red Rising Trilogy, Book 2) by Pierce Brown

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I cannot emphasize enough how much I am loving the Red Rising series. I’m pre-grieving my reading and finishing of the next and final book. But, I’m also so addicted that as soon as the library checks it out to me, I’m going to devour it. This is dystopian fiction at its finest: fully fleshed out, incredibly exciting, completely believable, deeply poetic. The protagonist, Darrow has my heart. He’s driven, he’s thoughtful, he’s pure but emotional, and he’s young and beautiful. The villains of the […]



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