Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Thank goodness I didn’t read this debut first

The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab

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Bingo review 9: Debut My first encounter with V.E. Schwab was Vicious, her break-out best-seller hit. This led me to A Darker Shade of Magic, and the rest as they say was history. I was intrigued when she announced that her original debut novel The Near Witch was going to be re-published. I didn’t especially enjoy this one; the basic plot and characters are too predictable and it’s written in first person present tense, one of my least favorites. The plot and characters are obviously […]

Victorian Gothic and Lovecraft Mashup

Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

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I liked Come Tumbling Down better than the previous installment of the Wayward Children series in terms of story, but I do think there was an over-emphasis on the concept of who’s the monster. Jack is back at the school but there’s something very wrong with her which if not fixed will definitely destroy her. This was the premise in the previews I’d seen and I have to admit I didn’t see that problem itself coming, although in hindsight it does suit their folkloric homeland […]

The Gore Surprised Me, but It Shouldn’t Have

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

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The original “Twelve Dancing Princesses” fairy tale is surprisingly un-gory. Silly me, I thought a modern retelling would be the same. Not so much! If you’re not familiar with the original fairy tale, it goes something like this: there are twelve sisters (princesses, natch) who, every night, sneak out of their castle and dance all night at an enchanted ball. Their dad, the king, wants to know where they go every night so he sends out the call that anyone who can figure out their […]

Sugar, Spice, and Things that go Bump in the Night

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

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Helen Oyeyemi is an expert in pulling back the cobwebs from the old trunk in the attic, shaking out the goods within, and daring you to take a good strong look. She weaves familiar fairly tales with Yoruba folktales, inter-generational family strife, and good old fashioned 21st century anxiety. In her most recent novel, Gingerbread, she leaves spicy breadcrumbs of Hansel and Gretel, the Gingerbread Man, and many other traditional tales. I was also strongly reminded of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Orsinian Tales. Oyeyemi’s characters present […]

The concept is better than the execution

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

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Official book description: The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away. This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all […]



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