Cannonball Read 11

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Magic and War Collide

The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden

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I loved the first novel in this trilogy because for me it was the perfect mix of fairy tale magic with some real life politics mixed in.  By focusing on the story of a young girl in her village, the novel had a nice intimate setting even as it dealt with a figurative battle between good and evil, the old ways and the new.  The greater politics opened up the potential for a broader scale in the rest of the trilogy, and I think that extended focus took away some of the magic of the early novel for me, even […]

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9/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:74 |

Once Upon a Time, a Girl Lost Herself

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

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I picked this up due to crystalclear’s review, and since I have a weakness for fairy tale retellings.  Stepsister takes place after the prince has chosen Ella, and taken her away from home to marry her.  Her stepmother and stepsisters are left behind in a village where they are now hated for their abuse of the country’s future queen. Donnelly decided to use the Grimm’s version of the fairy tale as her starting base so Tavi (Octavia), the older sister, and Izzy (Isabelle), the main character, are recovering from cutting off their heels and toes respectively.  The story even includes […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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9/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:68 |

“The fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice.” (Bingo)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

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#CBR11 Bingo: Listicle (on a bunch of best of 2018 lists, including NPR, Bustle and Bookbub). Would also work for “Award Winner”, as it’s won a Locus Award, and ALA Award and an Audie, or “Remix”, as it’s a fairy tale retelling. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish moneylenders, but her father is a dreadful one, who doesn’t have the heart to actually claim back the debts that the villagers owe, even when his daughter is starving and the long, cold winters are making his wife sicker and sicker. Miryem refuses to see her mother die due to her father’s weakness, hardens her […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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8/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:63 |

Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad … Detective?

Fables: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham

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Bingo Square: Illustrated I admit, I’d been kind of holding off on the Illustrated category because if it hadn’t been its own square, graphic novels could have easily been my “Not in My Wheelhouse” square.  I figured I’d probably do one of the ones dealing with issues, like Persepolis or Maus, but after Behold the Dreamers, I needed a nice, entertaining read as a palate cleanser.  The two graphic novel series that have stuck in my head after countless positive CBR reviews were Fables and Saga.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the first book of both was available […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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8/1/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:17 |

Silver in more ways than one

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

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Bingo Review 6 (Remix) I am loving this Bingo thing; it’s forcing me to pick up things I’ve been wanting to read but have hesitated to start for various reasons. Spinning Silver is one of these books. I really loved Naomi Novik’s Uprooted fairy tale retelling, and Spinning Silver does a lot of the same things. The biggest change though is also my biggest complaint. Verdict: Spinning Silver is a distant silver to Uprooted‘s gold. Spinning Silver is a mix between a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin and  general European fairy tale tropes. The story is set in quasi medieval Slovakia (I […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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7/27/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:55 |

Mirrors that don’t reflect reality

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

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I received Boy, Snow, Bird from an earlier CBR book exchange, but it had been collecting dust for a few years. I finally had a reason to pick it back up when my Mocha Girls Read book club selected it for a fairytale’s retold theme. Helen Oyeyemi’s novel is a VERY loose version of Snow White set in the 1950s. Boy Novak runs away to a small town to escape her abusive father. She meets a man named Arturo who isn’t quite a prince, but he adores her. After sort of wearing her down and her own loneliness, she marries him […]

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12/29/2018 's CBR10 Review No:14 |

Novik’s books aren’t just about magic; they are magic

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

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Uprooted was one of my favorite books of the last few years, and possibly ever. Since I’d never read Novik’s Temeraire books, I had no idea if it was a particular stroke of genius from her, or if she’s just always been consistently great and I never knew. I still haven’t read Temeraire, but now that she’s 2/2 for me with Spinning Silver, the imperative to do so becomes more pressing. Here is the summary from Goodreads: “Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge […]

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11/5/2018 's CBR10 Review No:41 |

A strange re-telling of Snow White

Poison by Sarah Pinborough

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Well, this was an odd little book.  As per the blurb:  An enticing contemporary retelling of the classic story of Snow White. While the the handsome prince, the jealous queen, the beautiful girl and of course the poison all appear, Sarah Pinborough’s charming and provocative spin on the story will captivate fans of the fairy tale all over again. I was a big fan of Once Upon a Time when it came out, with it’s unique view of fairy tale characters so I thought it might be interesting to see what this author did with it.  The copy I picked […]

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1/12/2018 's CBR10 Review No:3 |


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