Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


My Year of Dark Academia is Off to an Uneven Start

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

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Lately I’ve been finding myself drawn to dark academia, so I thought this year I might embrace it and go whole hog. I started the year off with two very different dark academia novels–one that I mostly enjoyed, and one that I didn’t really enjoy at all. First up, I read A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid. Effy is an architecture student at a prestigious college, but she wants to be a literature student–only women aren’t allowed to study literature. Her favorite author is Emrys Myrddin, […]

It was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

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I’m not sure if I can categorize this book as dark academia, but the characters and the story remind me so much of what I enjoyed about “If We Were Villains” and “The Secret History,” it is impossible for me not to draw parallels between them. All three stories are linked by a sudden and violent death, and how those left behind cope with their secrets. Paul is a seventeen-year-old who has recently graduated from high school. He lives with his mother and his two […]

Shakes Fear

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

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I’ll say this much for If We Were Villains: I finished it. Might sound simple but in this moment, that’s not easy to do. I’m not finishing much these days. If it doesn’t grab me off the bat, I’m probably going to sulk with it for a while. And it took me three full tries to get into this one. But it kept me going to the end (an end I hated but hey! I finished it!). I will give credit where credit is due: M.L. […]

Happy Gift Exchange to me! Thanks, faintingviolet!

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I’m excited to jump into these two books in the next few weeks. They’ll be my first two reviews of CBR22 in the new year. Books are If We Were Villains by M. L. Rios and Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. These books have been blessed by my patron saints Liz Lemon, Beyoncé, and Shea Couleé.

Don’t break my rules, please.

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So this book has a few problems that I will get to. Here’s what it does well: the scenes describing the experience of being on stage are good. The writing, in general, is quite good. The scenes describing the types of activities that happen at theater conservatory are good. These parts remind me a lot of My Dinner with Andre where Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory meet up and talk about among other things, experimental theater.  One of the things that is really neat is casting […]



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