Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Things are not always what they seem (Double Bingo)

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

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4.5 stars CBR13 Bingo: Landscape Costis is one of the Attolian guards, fiercely loyal to his beloved (if fearsome) queen and skeptical and disdainful of his so-called king, the former Thief of Eddis, who through trickery and guile ended up married to their queen. Nevertheless, when he foolishly loses his temper and ends up striking the king in the face, he’s mortified and expects to be sent home in disgrace if he’s lucky, executed if he’s unlucky. Yet the strange, new young king surprises everyone, […]

In case you were wondering, Christopher Marlowe is a little shit, according to this author.

Shadow of Night (All Souls, #2) by Deborah Harkness

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It has been a bit since I read this, so this review will be a bit lacking in details as I struggle to remember why I rated this three stars. I remember the middle particularly being a bit of a slog. Also, not much happened plot-wise for a 600ish page book. The author clearly just got really excited about putting her characters in a 16th century setting with a bunch of famous people from that era (and lots of non-famous people as well, to be […]

Is this the final Grishaverse book? I hope not

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

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4.5 stars CBR13 Bingo: Fauna (dragon, wolf, falcon and fox on the cover) In this second part of the King of Scars duology, the stakes are ridiculously high, pretty much as soon as we start off. The book starts pretty much immediately after the end of King of Scars, and if you’re not caught up with all the books in the Grishaverse so far, this review will probably spoil things for you. Continue at your own risk. Nikolai Lantsov has made some peace with the […]

“Of all the myriad races of thinking creatures in the world, the two that most delight in telling stories are the flesh-and-blood humans and the long-lived, fiery jinn.”

The Hidden Palace (The Golem & The Jinni, #2) by Helene Wecker

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I’m having a hard time reviewing this one, mostly because I had a hard time deciding what I thought about it. But I’m on the verge of getting hopelessly behind in reviews again, so it’s time to buckle down and figure it out. I was thinking about the book this morning and I think I’ve finally formed some solid opinions, so here we go. This is a book about change in all its forms: death (and grief), destruction, creation, evolution, the way a person changes […]

A book I loved years ago is still great on re-read.

The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1) by Helene Wecker

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This was just as good the second time. Not going to do a whole huge review because I’m tired, and I’d rather be reading the sequel instead of writing things. I still think this is an absolutely lovely portrayal of the immigrant experience, both in the way it portrays actual historical immigrant communities (particularly Little Syria and the Jewish communities in NYC) and in the way that Wecker uses the outsized fantastical experiences of the golem and the jinni (Chava and Ahmad, as they become […]

What unspeakable truth is being covered up by stories of ghosts?

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

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CBRBingo: Fauna – moths and Katsu, who somehow survived. In her sequel to The Watchmaker of Filligree Street Natash Pulley takes the story to Japan.  Thaniel has been sent by the Foreign Office to investigate stories of ghosts at the British legation.  His boss Fanshaw thinks that someone at the legation might be abusing their power over the local staff and an outsider who speaks the language and knows something of the culture might be able to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.  And […]



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