Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Entertaining enough, but disappointing

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

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 Warning: While I try to avoid any outright spoilers, you might want to skip this review if you are planning on reading this novel. Summary: I found Moriarty entertaining enough, but compared to the fabulous House of Silk, it’s downright disappointing. Kind of like how Cars would be a decent enough animated movie from any other studio, but from the studio that created Toy Story, WALL-E, and The Incredibles, you’re like “Lame, Pixar.” Now, the review: I’m sitting in a little Japanese restaurant eating my lunch, […]

Once more I dive into the breach of Sarah J. Maas’ overly sexual YA (#Remix)

Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

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So after hate-reading most of Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass series last year (haven’t been able to get through the last one yet), I decided to embark on reading her Court of whatevers series, because I needed something fluffy and vaguely risque.  (Important note: I do NOT mean it dismissively when I say something is fluffy. Just because it is written largely for teenage girls does not mean it is therefore automatically inferior!) I actually enjoyed it much more than I expected–at least until […]

Two Snow Whites, and two bingo squares!

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm by by Randall Jarrell (Translator), Nancy Ekholm Burkert (Illustrator)

Snow White in New York by Fiona French

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So my sister is getting her Master’s degree in Art Education.  She’s currently in a class about picture books (or something along those lines).  Her homework for this week was to compare three different versions of a picture book, so since I thought at least two of the three books would work for me for bingo squares, I joined her in reading the books for her homework.  We got my nine year old niece involved too.  She actually read the books aloud to us, which […]

Elementary, My Dear Douglas

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abul-Jabbar and Amy Waterhouse

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This is the story of Mycroft Holmes, older brother to the famous Sherlock Holmes. If you are a fan of Sherlock at all you know Mycroft as the meddling older brother, the suit, the government lackey who is constantly pestering and annoying Sherlock by trying to get him to do things. How do you think Mycroft sees the situation? This book actually starts before that. Sherlock is still a teenager (possibly early 20s) and living at school and Mycroft is the young Secretary to the […]

“I try not to expect people to be who I wish them to be, rather than who they are.” (Bingo #2)

A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2) by Sherry Thomas

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In setting up the prompts for our Sherlock Retellings Book Club I realized one of the parameters I use when deciding if something is a good retelling or remix: a good retelling for its own sake, needs to have enough of the original’s connective tissue without feeling like it’s been made using tracing paper. In the Lady Sherlock series Sherry Thomas split the various characteristics across several characters and I think it worked really well to not have direct analogs for the most part. Its […]

1st BINGO!

Finn by Jon Clinch

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Since I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as my classic this year, what better way to do the Remix square then to find a retelling of the book I had just finished. The original would be fresh in my mind and I’d have a place to jump off from. I found Finn at the local book barn, and since it was only $5.00 for the hardcover, what was the harm? The premise was intriguing….a whole book from Huck’s father’s perspective….and for full disclosure, I was taken […]



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