Cannonball Read 13

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You don’t need to remember very much of The Great Gatsby to appreciate retellings

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

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So here’s the thing: I’m not like, super into The Great Gatsby. I read it in school, and like everyone else I’ve gone to a thousand Great Gatsby parties (hopefully we’re all done with them still, because otherwise the thematic appropriateness means we’ll be flappering well into the mid-20s). But from what I remember, this book nails the overall ~*mood*~ of the book, which I feel is best summarized by one of my favorite words: insouciance. Everyone is always bright and fragile and brittle and shiny […]

One of many literature romance novels I will read this year

Love at First by Kate Clayborn

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So this is obviously a Romeo and Juliet re-telling, except as it were the real R&J couple are Will (Romeo’s) parents. That’s not a spoiler–I don’t mean it in the “they were foes and died tragically in a murder/suicide,” because it’s more the sentiment, like the outlines of their romance. The very first review of this book perfectly captured something I also wished–that Will and Nora had actually met in the first part of the book, such that their/Will’s instant connection was based on more than a […]

Delight in Violence for sure, but not entirely the book I was looking for

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

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There were things I liked about this book (the fashion! the sombre realities of colonialism!) but they were largely outweighed by clunky writing that’s simultaneously too verbose and too brief. Not to malign youth, but I upon reaching the author bio and seeing that Gong is currently a student at UPenn I definitely had a moment of “ah, yes, makes sense.” These Violent Delights is not, as I initially thought, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet in 1920s Shanghai. It’s obviously not not that (all the characters make an […]

Beauty and the Beast, Now with 100% Less Stockholm

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

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I’ll say that this is probably more of a 2.5 book that I am rounding up because I liked it but also kept wincing until near to the end (if not the end), which is not a reaction I want to have with these types of books. I believe this was a Beauty and the Beast retelling I stumbled upon after reading When Beauty Tamed the Beast and deciding that this would be a vein I’d pursue in some more detail. If it weren’t for the fact […]

“There are many kinds of love. But there is nothing like a sister.”

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

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3.5 stars Official book description: In a remote village surrounded by vast forests on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have been raised on the honeyed scent of their Mami’s babka and the low rumble of their Tati’s prayers. But when a troupe of mysterious men arrives, Laya falls under their spell – despite their mother’s warning to be wary of strangers. And this is not the only danger lurking in the woods.   As dark forces close in on their […]



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