Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

You’re a cold-hearted snake…

Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire

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CBR14 Bingo: Series (this is book 17 in an ongoing series, do NOT start here). Could easily also have used this book for Snake and New.  Spoiler warning! This is book 17 in the series. It’s impossible to review the book without referring to events in earlier books, so if you want to remain completely unspoiled, skip this one. I’ll try to avoid any big spoilers for this book. October “Toby” Daye not only survived her wedding, but so did her husband, Tybalt, King of Cats, and all […]

Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman

The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: cozy. The main character is a narcoleptic and his body frequently drags him off into a deep, cozy sleep.  It’s clear that I need to read more of Paul Tremblay’s work. While I didn’t love The Pallbearer’s Club, I enjoyed Tremblay’s writing style. He came across as accessible and fun, someone I could easily digest while providing enough pathos for his protagonists to feel like they are more than literary ciphers. I grabbed this on a lark in a bookstore, […]

If you think your flat is haunted by a murderous ghost, why would you try to summon said ghost?

Svarte-Mathilda by Tor Arve Røssland

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3.5 stars Twenty years after a teenage girl was brutally murdered in a small town near Bergen, Elizabeth moves into the long-empty flat with her mother. Elizabeth’s parents are going through a divorce, and in a tragic accident a while back, Elizabeth’s older brother died in a fire. She hates that they had to move away from her old home and her friends in Bergen, that her mother doesn’t seem to want to talk to her at all, and she certainly doesn’t like their new […]

I’m still not sure exactly what to make of this book and it’s been months.

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

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I found this an enjoyable reading experience, but it definitely wasn’t a perfect read for me. I’m gonna need to talk spoilers to get my full thoughts out, but they’ll be marked. But first, non-spoilery thoughts. Obviously you know from the title that this is a book about maps, and people who make, study, and collect maps. It’s also about family, secrets, magic, and murder. Our main character is Nell, whose mother died in a fire when she was a small child, and whose father […]

Cold as Hell

The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe

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Read as part of CBR14Bingo: series. This is the first in what’s referred to Stateside as the “Hanne Lagerlind-Schon” series. It’s also part of a series of popular “Nordic Noir” and/or “Scandinavian Noir” tales that have made it to the United States. I don’t really know what to make of Camilla Grebe’s interesting, sometimes frustrating, always compelling The Ice Beneath Her, except to say that I enjoyed it. It’s twisty to be sure but I always felt like the twists were grounded in the pathos of […]

Hell Is Empty

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: verse. This book frequently quotes the “Hell is empty, all the devils are here” passage from “The Tempest”, as well as verses from a fictional short story inspired by that passage.  This left me with the same feeling I felt when I first read Tana French’s debut novel In the Woods: good but I feel like it’s missing something to prevent it from being great. I really liked the first half of the book: getting to know the three POV characters, […]



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