Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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I feel like I read two different novels

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews

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CBR18 BINGO: 26, because it was published in 2026 Just shy of the halfway point in This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, I was struggling to understand why it came so highly recommended. At the start of the novel, the heroine, Maggie, finds herself alone and naked in a ditch, in a world that she knows from her favorite fantasy series. While not a completely new premise, it’s a provocative setup. Maggie’s initial challenge is to find food, clothes, and shelter, and for that she […]

Interesting Concept, Would Have Loved Even More

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

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If you’re in the mood for a YA portal fantasy with ace and trans rep, this might be for you. Although to be fair, it’s maybe more portal-adjacent because we don’t actively spend time in those other words. In this first book in the Wayward Children series, we learn that Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children is a sanctuary for children who visited other worlds but for some reason left or were rejected from them. Their families don’t believe they traveled anywhere, and Eleanor takes them […]

At least the cover is pretty

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn

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Damn … this book is going to be one of those The Last Jedi situations for me, I can already tell. In other words, I was disappointed with the novel/didn’t love it for my own story reasons but a lot of the people leaving negative reviews are doing it for ridiculous conservative reasons. It’s like, “I didn’t have an issue with those things, you book-banning transphobes, I just wanted a more engaging main character/overall story.” It starts off strong, following the main character and narrator, […]

You can be sure about more than one thing

Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire

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Seanan McGuire has three different series that are on a predictable release schedule: Septembers are for October Daye, May for InCryptid and January? Well, that’s saved for the Wayward Children novella series. As always, no quests allowed. For anyone new to the series, the even releases are deeper dives into the story of one of the characters (usually someone we have met already, sometimes someone to be introduced soon) while the odds should be read in order and are part of a continuing storyline that […]

An Indie-Published YA Fantasy

A Discovery of Talents by Phoenix McDonald

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This is an indie-published book, which I was excited to read because I want to support indie authors. In this YA fantasy, 16-year-old Marcus discovers that he can travel from earth to another world, called Lysomnus. His father Deacon is kidnapped by someone from that world before he has much of an opportunity to tell Marcus more about this new ability or Lysomnus itself. Marcus sets out with his friends Leopold and Sadie to find his father, and along the way they are thrust into […]

A third re-read for a book whose series I never thought I would continue.

The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) by Lev Grossman

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I have once again re-read this book. (I blame my Narnia re-read, and also I wanted to read it one last time before I started watching the TV show.) My past self would be devastated to learn I have gotten even more out of this read than I did the last. I still really dislike most of these characters, especially when we reach the middle section after they graduate from Brakebrills and become disaffected young adults. I never went through this stage of life and […]



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