Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Be Careful What You Wish For

The Invisible Life of Addie Laroux by V.E. Schwab

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Addie Laroux was born in the 1690’s in France. Paradoxically, her very normal life led her to the most abnormal of circumstances. Facing the shackles of marriage and domestic county life, Addie ran into the woods and prayed for her freedom. In her haste, she appealed to whichever god would listen. But in her desperation, she also prayed after the sun went down, and forgot a warning to never pray to the gods who answer after dark. And it was Luc who answered. Make no […]

“Big Jim’s eyeball fell out. Like, fell the fuck out of his head. It rolled onto the grass, and to be honest, Big Jim and I were both taken aback.”

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton

Feral Creature by Kira Jane Buxton

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CBR16 Bingo: Earth Day – This series revolves around how the natural world starts asserting itself upon the planet when the human race dies out in a pseudo-zombie apocalypse. Hollow Kingdom – 4 stars ST, a domesticated crow, finds himself unexpectedly in the midst of the extinction of the human race, and must make the best of it. I am an animal lover, and so I loved this book. As a pet owner, I found myself fascinated by the exploration of what may become of […]

Dr Strangelove, My Favorite Skynet, Jonathan Swan.

The Red Queen by Isobelle Carmody

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Apologies, this is going to be a long one.  It took me a while to get here. After close to thirty years and seven volumes, I finally made it to The Red Queen –  the final entry in The Obernewtyn Chronicles. And I rather wish it wasn’t. This isn’t just some kind disappointment at hitting the end of the series, this is also me lamenting that we didn’t get an eighth volume—or a more hardline editor.  Let’s start with the positives: the first half of […]

A Much-Wanted Dialectic

The Unwanted Guest by Tamsyn Muir

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Hah, Ok I thought maybe doing this short story was a little bit cheeky.  But then I saw that fellow Cannonballer Monty had beaten me to the punch! All the permission I needed. In physical sense, The Unwanted Guest was initially a little tricky for me to track down and read because I have so far only seen it in the paperback copies of Nona the Ninth. I wasn’t going to buy a paperback version, as I have already purchased two copies of the book […]

Taking Time to Stop and Smell The Radioactive Countryside.

The Sending by Isobelle Carmody

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So I’m getting close to the endgame now with my re-read of The Obernewtyn Chronicles. As a reminder, the first book in the series, Obernewtyn , was published in the late eighties, while the book that I initially thought was going to be the final installment, The Stone Key, was published in 2008.  The Stone Key, as it transpires was not the last book at all—in fact, very little page-time had been spent on Elspeth’s final quest to disarm the Sentinel. Instead, it was more […]

The dreaded cliffhanger!

The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani

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Oh, is there anything like the dawning horror – 50 or so pages from the end of your book – that it’s going to be darned hard for this plot to all wrap up neatly? And as you hope against hope, page by page, it becomes grimly clear…this is not a standalone book. Luckily I am most happy to forgive Intisar Khanani several times over, because I’m delighted that I’ll get to spend more time with the The Theft of Sunlight’s characters, as soon as […]



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