Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Adding vampires to history and historical fiction, metaphor or plot device?

Scarlet by Genevieve Cogman

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Bingo 16: History Scarlet is basically fan-fic of historical fiction; totally counts for history since the historical part is real (revolutionary-era France). The historical fiction base is The Scarlet Pimpernel, set in the aftermath of the execution of the rulers of France; if you don’t know the story basically the mysterious masked hero from England saves the lives of French nobility by sneaking them out of France while the French authorities try to put a stop to that. So, basically, Batman who is British and […]

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story

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I read the first novel in this series, Cinder, quite a bit ago so I apologize if I get some details wrong, or if I accidentally spoil something. But not really, because these books have been out for a while. SO I APOLOGIZE FOR NOTHING. Anyway, spoilers ahead, probably. Cinder, of course, was based on the fairy tale Cinderella. A young woman, Lihn Cinder, works as a mechanic in order to supply her step-mother and step-sisters with money and comfort. She’s also a cyborg, just […]

The characters and story were fine. The editing? Not so much.

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Now that Bunnybean is tearing her way through the Lunar Chronicles books, I figured I might as well try and finish up the last book (I don’t count the new book of “related short stories” that just came out), Winter. I wasn’t all that excited about reading it, to be honest. I loved Cinder and Scarlet, and really liked Cress. And then I read Fairest. And I despised it. It really almost ruined the entire series for me. It was so heavy-handed and annoying, I […]

Every story really needs a Han Solo

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Hi, everyone! I hope you’re having a great start to the year. I’m so excited to be doing cannonball read again! I just finished a book called Scarlet, which is the second book in the Lunar Chronicles. I’d like to thank Terri (ModernLove) for getting me the third book, Cress, for Christmas in the book swap. I can’t wait to start reading it! The book continues the story about Cinder, a mechanic who is cyborg. In the previous book, Cinder, Cinder is invited to the […]

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

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The thing about sequels, or any book that comes after the first in a series, is that you’re never quite sure how they’re going to stack up to the first. Obviously, the first was good enough to get you to come back for more, but will it be as you remembered? Will the characters and story not only hold up, but progress? That’s the tricky part, I think. Sequels have to be better, have to push the story further along and really get you invested. […]

Masters Programs Ruin You for Genre Reading

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So I finished Scarlet during my first Creative Writing Masters’ Residency  a few weeks ago, which may be part of the reason this book got 2.5 stars. True, I was having a hard time swallowing Wolf and Scarlet’s interactions before I went to the program, but after 9 days of intense seminars on nothing but writing and the craft of writing, my disappointment in these two characters solidified. But because I loved Cinder so much, and feel really terrible giving this book 2.5 stars, let’s […]



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