Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Faerie court intrigue at its finest

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

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Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. This book by Holly Black is the first in a new YA series, The Folk of the Air, set in the treacherous High Court of Faerie.  I haven’t read anything by Ms Black previously, but I’ve been in a reading slump for a few months and this book looked promising when I saw it in the hot titles section at the library.  The first chapter jumps right into action, and I was hooked immediately into the storyline. Jude and […]

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6/26/2018 's CBR10 Review No:21 |

Backyard Fairies

Backyard Fairies by Phoebe Wahl

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Backyard Fairies is more of a 4.5 rating as I would have liked “something else” (though I am not sure exactly what that would be. Perhaps I would have liked it to be a tad bit longer. I do enjoy the illustrations as they are unique. They have a realistic quality but in a slight unrealistic way. The contradiction of this does make them slightly magical. Phoebe Wahl has been the girl in this story. I would also go as far to say, that she still is the curious girl in this story. Her author blurb does metnion she still […]

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6/12/2018 's CBR10 Review No:202 |

“Likest thou jelly within thy doughnut?”

Small Favor (Dresden Files, #10) by Jim Butcher

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Some overall reactions to my re-read of this book: The Gruffs are still great. Just the perfect amount of gravitas combined with ridiculousness. There are still too many fight scenes that go on for too long. (My mind wanders during fight scenes unless something else is going on.) And there are some things in here that read differently when you know what’s coming! Spoilers ahoy. For instance, there are about three references to Harry semi-jokingly noting that Kincaid could shoot him from very far away, one even from on a boat! (One of which is followed by a “joke” that […]

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2/15/2018 's CBR10 Review No:23 |

Girl vampire meets dangerous demon-fairy sex assassin

Sweet Ruin by Kresley Cole

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I had planned on reading all the Immortals After Dark books by Kresley Cole in order. But when I noticed Sweet Ruin was a standalone book, I skipped ahead to Book 16. This romantic tale didn’t start with a battle or instant attraction. Instead, we meet our heroine, Josephine (Jo for short), a homeless teen taking care of her baby brother, Thaddeus, in Texas. They hide out in the local public library during the day living off the kindness of the librarian. The foster system failed them. One home assignment ended with Jo burning down the house out of revenge for the […]

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2/4/2018 's CBR10 Review No:3 |

The one where Rachel goes on an ill-advised banshee hunt

White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison

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It has taken me three years to circle back to the first book from The Hollows series I found at the library. I unwittingly checked out and read a page from White Witch, Black Curse before realizing it was the seventh in the series! The completist that I am returned it. I finally started with book one in 2014. I’m probably the only one spacing out this series over so many years. 😉 ****Major spoilers for previous books in the series to follow**** Rachel Morgan has been through the wringer, y’all. At the start of this book, she is desperate to remember what transpired […]

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12/30/2016 's CBR8 Review No:2 |

The more I read these books, the more I like to think it’s an adult Harry Potter.

The Dresden Files (8-15) by Jim Butcher

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I hope it goes without saying that, if you haven’t read these books, beware the spoilers that follow. I’ve tried to not give away major plot points for each book, but if you’re on book three, you may not want to read the following reviews. Harry Potter was one of those foundational stories, for me. It laid the groundwork for what I deem good in this world. To some degree, everything I’ve read since has been weighed against the mark left on my soul by those books. There is no recapturing the magic I found there, but I keep hoping […]

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4/26/2016 's CBR8 Review No:34 |

Call me sexist…..Okay. You are, Dresden. You’re a sexist.

The Dresden Files (books 4-7) by Jim Butcher

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The Dresden books are really good airport reads. I’m partial to genre fiction, so I read a lot more science fiction and fantasy than, say, James Patterson or John Grisham. But I think these books fall quite nicely into that quick, fun read section of the bookstore which is also inhabited by Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, and other, similar, authors. There’s nothing revolutionary, or particularly meaningful here. Butcher isn’t exploring the existential quandary his characters, or delving some broader exploration of life in the early 21st century. In the grand tradition of Louis L’Amour, he’s writing books that are meant […]

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3/25/2016 's CBR8 Review No:26 |

I Guess I Just Wanted the Forest to be Darker

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

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Hazel and her brother Ben live a small town that edges up against the land of the fairies. As children  they were the best of friends, often going off on dangerous adventures in the woods together taking down monsters in a badass brother/sister duo where the brother is the musician who stuns the wild creatures and Hazel, who is the knight who slays the beasts.  But even as children, Ben realizes the danger the two of them are in and wants to quit before they get hurt.  Hazel does not and this decision will have lasting effects as well as […]

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5/28/2015 's CBR7 Review No:40 |


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