Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Road trips, miscommunication and untruths

The Halifax Hellions by Alexandra Vasti

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Novella 1: In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Shocking Reputation (3.5 stars) Novella 2: In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint (4.5 stars) Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC. My opinions are my own. This book collects two previously self-published novellas of Alexandra Vasti’s, and includes an additional epilogue which has never before been available. Margo and Matilda Halifax are identical twins, the wealthy younger sisters of an Earl and have basically been seen as outrageous scandals for […]

It’s me, not you … to the entire sub genre of cozy fantasy

Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree

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This simply wasn’t the year for me and cozy fantasy. I don’t think I was in quite the right headspace for it so I didn’t enjoy these types of novels nearly as much as in other years, even when it was authors I previously enjoyed. It’s not that every novel needs to be gripping epic fantasy but even for my lighter reads, I just tended to want something that was a bit more fast paced. For this reason, I was slightly dreading this novel even […]

Major Tom? Can You Hear Me?

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

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cbr17 bingo Migrant   Like the title says, an archive, a family one, loaded into boxes and carried across country from New York to Arizona.  The family is a hybrid one – the husband with his son and the wife with her daughter, yet the two children are a team.  Good thing they have each other to rely on.  The parents met as part of a project to document the soundscape of New York City, but when the wife meets the mother of a classmate […]

“Whether or not you find your own way, you’re bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it’s quite rusty.”

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrations by Jules Feiffer

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There are no wrong roads to anywhere. Young Milo finds everything absolutely boring; tv is boring, school is boring, life is boring up until the day he arrives home from school to discover a tollbooth has appeared in his room, complete with a map of places to see and a car to go to them. Seeing as there’s nothing good on t.v. and he has nothing better to do, Milo drives through it and is transported to another world. The most important reason for going […]

I think I prefer her contemporaries

Manic Pixie Dream Earl by Jenny Holiday

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3.5 stars Thanks to Jenny Holiday, Netgalley and Tantor Audio for this ARC. My opinion is my own. Edward “Effie” Astley, Viscount Featherfinch, is a poet and a terrible disappointment to his father. Thankfully, he’s about to set off on the annual “Earl’s trip” with his two best friends, who support him come what may. So they don’t ask any questions when Effie asks them to help him store a broken printing press, nor why he’s so preoccupied with letters from a Miss Evans. Effie […]

“Join a commune!” they said.

The Gulf by Adam de Souza

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The Gulf by Adam de Souza was an interesting read. However, since I have read several similar titles, the theme did not WOW or “Hit me powerfully.” However, it was a great coming of age story with some interesting twists and turns. The concepts might be a bit mature for some readers, but for the most part the content is fine for at least thirteen and up. And as always, older teens and adults should read it as it has an almost all age appeal. […]



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