Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“There’s a saying in the Blessed Empire: Little thieves steal gold, and great ones steal kingdoms, but only one goes to the gallows. “

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

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One of the consequences of working through the Hugo Award nominees is that I’ll be making my way through a lot of YA entries for the Lodestar Award. And while most of the nominated authors have a positive buzz, they are also all new to me. One of the nice things Worldcon did for the voters this year—in addition with the publishers, I assume—is provide not just a copy of Margaret Owen’s Holy Terrors, but the two proceeding books in the series as well. A good […]

Murder Mystery Fairy Tale Fantasy Goodness

Beauty and the Alchemist by Elle Hartford

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Beauty and the Alchemist asks, what does it take to overcome a curse? Particularly if the world you live in is filled with magic. Throw in a bit of murder and you have quite the mystery on your hands. Which is exactly what formerly traveling alchemist Red finds herself surrounded by. She’s been content to settle into life as a shopkeeper in rural Belville, expecting to focus on potions and finding her footing within the community. Red’s plans get changed when Belville’s lone police officer, […]

A Fairy Tale Beginning, but not the Disney Kind

Norroway Book 1: The Black Bull of Norroway by Kit & Cat Seaton

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Bingo 8: Camel So this is both thematic and literal adaptation. Norroway, Book 1: The Black Bull of Norroway is both thematic in that the main character (and maybe at least one other individual) has to adapt to all the new things going on in her world, and also this is a graphic novel adaptation of a Celtic fairy tale. Sibylla is the heroine, who is pretty standard for a certain kind of fairy tale: she want more out of life than most of her […]

“The world is a dangerous place, full of people who don’t trust each other. This is why I am staying up in this tree.”

Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

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Stranger Things Happen is Kelly Link’s first collection of short fiction, but- PLOT TWIST: it was the only book of hers that I had yet to read. Oops! I suppose….stranger things HAVE happened. Link writes like the  girl in the back of homeroom who is weird, yes, but also cool and intimidating. She’s probably wearing black and writing allover her arms with a ballpoint pen. She knows a lot and she is not afraid to drop reference after reference and allusion after allusion- she doesn’t care […]

into the woods to see the troll, to meet the boy, to sell the girl, to trick the teens, to catch the murderer, to erase the memories, to exact revenge…

The Prince and the Troll by Rainbow Rowell

Hazel and Gray by Nic Stone

The Princess Game by Soman Chainani

The Cleaners by Ken Liu

The Wickeds by Gayle Forman

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Back at it again with another Amazon Original Series! My brain is totally fried with year-end nonsense, but this series has given me nice little breaks while going about my day-to-day chores and adventures. I didn’t need any convincing to give this collection a “go”; I love a good fairytale retell or folklore restructure- no one will ever come close to Angela Carter, but I certainly won’t leave them out in the cold! The Prince and the Troll 3/5 I know that YOU know this, but […]

Something missing in Lundy and her Market

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

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The biggest thing for me here was I had trouble really feeling the motivation. Lundy’s attachment to the Goblin Market is clearly based a little in her friends but one of them is hardly mentioned except that they died (?) and the other one and Lundy don’t really seem to have any kind of emotional attachment. But then again maybe that’s the point? Lundy’s character from her childhood is presented as a rather detached bookworm who doesn’t seem to mind that she doesn’t have a […]



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