Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“There is nothing wrong with being a monster.”

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

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?????? It’s been weeks now and I still don’t know what to make of this one. A very dark and weird take on The Little Mermaid story, with a cheeky little nod to Hans Christian Andersen even; mostly this was an exercise in imagery and I didn’t connect to the characters, but I can’t deny it has style. The mermaid here was essentially stolen from the sea, forced to marry a prince, had her tongue cut out, and then gave birth to daughters who then […]

CBR BINGO – On the Road: “. . . happiness comes not from bodily pleasures or wealth or power, but from living a life that’s right for your soul.”

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

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This was very sweet and a little bit unhinged, which I of course always appreciate. This is actually a bit more in line with Klune’s self-published stuff, with darker themes and humor with a little more of an edge to it. I am REALLY curious to know what the original story in this book looked like; he’s vague in the end notes but apparently somebody told him the world wasn’t ready for it (????) and things were changed up pretty heavily. There are some light […]

“‘Why would anyone love a monster?’ asked Perseus. ‘Who are you to decide who is worthy of love?’ said Hermes. ‘I mean, I wasn’t…’ ‘And who are you to decide who is a monster?’”

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

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I knew I was going to like this, but I didn’t quite expect to like it as much as I did. Sometime in the near future, we’re going to hit the saturation point for Greek mythology retellings in the literary marketplace, but it seems we’re at the peak right now, and it can be hard to sort out the copycat clones from the worthwhile without reading them first. Stone Blind is one of the worthwhile. It’s not enough to just retell a myth, even if you are […]

Natalie Naudus saved me on this one.

Heart of the Sun Warrior (The Celestial Kingdom Duology, #2) by Sue Lynn Tan

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Last year I got into a really bad habit of not only buying pretty much every first book in a series that looked good to me, but oftentimes buying the sequel as well. That is what I did for this series. I was so convinced I would love it, I overcommitted. When I finally got around to reading the first book, Daughter of the Moon Goddess, in January, I had a tough time getting through it. Something about the pacing and the writing style did […]

“It’s true on a technicality. I’m being held unlawfully. I didn’t commit the crime for which I’ve been convicted. But if you look at it another way, I deserve to be here. I did a lot of other shitty things, for which I wasn’t punished.”

The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

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I wish I would have known this was a retelling of The Brothers Karamazov before I purchased this book and got all excited about it. I probably never would have picked it up. There is a reason that I have never read any of Dostoyevsky’s stuff (or Tolstoy for that matter). The Family Chao follows the titular family, owners of a Chinese restaurant in a small town in America. The parents of the family are immigrants from China, and there are three sons. When the […]

The women of The Odyssey, except eighteen years afterwards, as narrated by Hera.

Ithaca (The Songs of Penelope, #1) by Claire North

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I really, really liked this! Claire North’s writing style translated extremely well to retelling Greek mythology. The undercurrent of female rage and sorrow was pleasing and upsetting at the same time. It’s also darkly funny. I almost feel like I want to re-read this before I write a review so I can get my thoughts more in order, but nobody has time for that. Or, maybe some people do, but I don’t know who they are. I just feel like it was so well done! […]



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