Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A Range of Books From Brutal to Cozy

An Ember in The Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

James by Percival Everett

The Tea Dragon Society by K. O'Neill

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An Ember in the Ashes Sabaa Tahir swiftly establishes the brutality of the world the characters are living in, in this first of a 4-book YA fantasy series. The Martials conquered Scholar lands 500 years ago and the Scholars are second-class citizens who are frequently enslaved. Elite Martial soldiers known as Masks are also treated violently as they go through their training at Blackcliff. The book alternates POVs between Laia, a Scholar, and Elias, a Mask who has nearly completed his training. They come into […]

The anger is palpable, but so is the sorrow

All My Rage: A Novel by Sabaa Tahir

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This YA novel was published in 2022 and won a National Book Award. It contains many difficult themes and triggers, including: racism, physical abuse, drug use/addiction/overdose, trauma, death and grief, The main characters/narrators in All My Rage are Noor, Salahudin and his mother Misbah. They live in a small desert community in Juniper California, near a military base that employs many in the town. Noor and Salahudin are high school seniors who have been friends since they were little, but when the story opens, near […]

Honestly incredible… I’m at a loss for words.

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

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CBR 16 Bingo – Rage: …It’s in the title. No explanation required. This book, told through 3 perspectives, one from the past and 2 in the present. In the past, in Lahore, Pakistan, Misbah is newly married to Tofiq in an arranged marriage. They end up coming to the United States hoping for a new start and end up opening the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel. In the present, Salahudin (Misbah’s son, nicknamed Sal) and his best friend Noor were so close they were like family, […]

Embers Burn Out

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir

A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir

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This book series had so much potential. The Ember quartet is a fairly typical YA fantasy at its core. Interesting world building and a focus on a few ‘chosen’ characters that have to save that world with a touch of romance and a huge splattering of violence. The book series started out a little slow to me in the first one but by half way through I was invested. By the second book I was in love! And by the third book I was…bored. The […]

A series that peters out like a sad fart. Is that mean. If it is, let me know and I will change this title.

A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4) by Sabaa Tahir

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I was so annoyed with this one by the end that I almost one-starred it, but I didn’t hate the first half, and honestly it’s not trash, and I usually save that one-star for true dislike or hatred. This really didn’t reach that level. To be clear, though, I also really did not like it. And it’s held up my review queue for frickin’ forever. And I liked the first book so much! Gah. Anyway, I didn’t like this as an ending, or really as […]

Stakes Get Higher and the Empire Gets More Evil

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

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I read, An Ember in the Ashes, the first book of Sabaa Tahir’s fantasy series while on vacation in January and it hit all my fantasy sweet spots.  It was nice to know that I had two more books to go before I caught up and had to wait like everybody else for Book 4. A Torch Against the Night picks up right where the first book left off—with Laia and Elias trying to escape the city of Serra through underground tunnels with the goal […]



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