Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.”

Soulless by Gail Carriger

by Leave a Comment

CBR18 Bingo: And – This book’s got a mashup of genres – historical AND fantasy AND mystery AND steampunk AND romance. Alexia Tarabotti, who has a big nose, a dead Italian father, and no soul, finds herself embroiled in supernatural intrigues when werewolves and vampires start disappearing from London. I read this book (and practically all of Carriger’s Parasolverse) years and years ago, though my memory is pretty vague on almost all of it, so I got to enjoy the twists and turns in this […]

“Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.”

Soulless by Gail Carriger

by 1 Comment

It’s dreadfully awkward being soulless in Victorian High Society. Add to that being the spinster daughter of a dead Italian, and life just isn’t working out for Alexia Tarabotti, and that’s before she’s attacked by a vampire at a social gathering. Bad enough that breaks all societal etiquette, but it also comes along with the downside that now Alexia has to deal with Lord Conall Maccon, the loud, obnoxious, Scottish werewolf sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. It seems that known vampires are disappearing nightly, […]

Have I moved on emotionally from Gail Carriger?

Prudence (The Custard Protocol, #1) by Gail Carriger

by 2 Comments

This was a perfectly fine and entertaining book that I for some reason had a hard time picking up and making myself finish, and I feel almost no pull to continue and finish the series. This is such a huge turnaround for what my feelings were about her first series, The Parasol Protectorate, which featured the main character of this book’s mother. I was enchanted and delighted by those books. Our main character here is Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama, and I’m not even going to […]

Harry Potter is a Herione and Wonder Woman is a Hero

The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger

by 2 Comments

Warning: this is a review of an at least partially academic book. It gets into theory-world (literary theory) pretty hard. However, it’s also very strongly based in popular culture, mostly to help make the point that the patterns of interest to certain types of theory are influential in stories and entertainment types things beyond “Literature”-with a capital L. The style of the book is also pretty low-key; this is not an insult; it is a statement that although the book tackles some pretty academic conceptual […]

The Justice Bits are the Best

Defy or Defend by Gail Carriger

by Leave a Comment

The Delightfully Deadly series is basically a companion and continuation to Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series which is a prequel to the Parasol Protectorate (also a series, or rather two). You don’t need to have read the Parasol Protectorate, but it would really help with the Delightfully Deadly series if you have some familiarity with the Finishing School series. All of them are set in a generally steampunk-esque Victorian England that includes some knowledge and existence of werewolves and vampires. Defy or Defend is part […]

Who doesn’t want an exploding wicker chicken?

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger

by Leave a Comment

CBR11 BINGO: So It Begins This novel is a re-read for me. I am a huge fan of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate and Custard Protocolseries. However, her shift to YA in the Finishing School series set prior to the shenanigans in the Parasol Protectorate books didn’t really do it for me. To appeal to a younger audience, Carriger dialled down her hallmark cheeky sexual innuendo and unfortunately some of her witty banter and sass went along with it. I recently read Carriger’s latest and supposedly last full length novel set in the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo