Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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Wow. This was pointless. I understand why authors sometimes come back and do prequels to best-selling novels. You want to see how did person A get to where they are. But I really do not understand why anyone cared at all about Snow. Collins does not provide any insight into the character. And then the ending leaves some things unresolved that you can just ‘guess’ at. Ten bucks there’s another prequel coming out about [redacted] in a few years. And honestly, the worst thing about […]

The Song that Never Ends

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel by Suzanne Collins

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I read the original Hunger Games trilogy around the time the movies were coming out, because sometimes I like to keep an eye on what’s popular. I remember enjoying the first book, then enjoying the second book less, and then not enjoying the third book at all. The third book was tedious, repetitive and dull, in my opinion. Unfortunately, that downward trend has only continued into Suzanne Collins’s prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Set decades before the events of the original trilogy, […]

Like karaoke for books

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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Did you know Panem was pronounced “PAN-EM?” I sure didn’t. You emphasize both syllables apparently. That’s a benefit of listening to the audio book. But you know what might not be a benefit of an audiobook? Hearing a man trying to do female voices. Now, I’ll admit that I listen to audio books at a fast pace, which obviously affects the vibe. But I couldn’t help think that the females in this book sounded like female South Park characters. And it gets worse when some […]

The Autobiography of a Narcissistic Psychopath

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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Coriolanus Snow’s only way to rebuild his family’s legacy is to have his tribute make a good showing in the 10th Hunger Games. But when he starts to become interested in Lucy Gray, he wonders if it might be possible for her to actually win them. I put off reading this book for a long time, scared off by mixed reviews from other fans of the Hunger Games series. It’s certainly a different type of story, but I ended up appreciating this new perspective into […]

a thousand apologies and what feels like a thousand reviews (through November 2023)

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The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hinumegin er mars by Sólrun Michelsen

Trust by Hernan Diaz

How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones

In the Beginning was the Sea by Tomás González

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The City & the City by China Miéville

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers

The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within by Rory Stewart

Rivals by Katherine McGee

Reign by Katherine McGee

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Iliad by Homer, Emily Wilson

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

10 Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy

A Little Life by Hanya Yanighara

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Starting Over Game by girl_with_kaleidoscope_eyes

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Edinburg by Alexander Chee CBR15: Sex True fact, when someone British asked me what I was reading I pronounced this “Edin-BERG” and to their credit they didn’t laugh but instead asked, with some horrified sincerity, if that’s how Americans say it. It’s not! At least, not on purpose. It’s just how can the English language claim to have been invented in a country that seems to not have grasped even a shred of understanding of how the various letters in it work? I digress. This is […]

Just in time for the movie

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

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It was only when the trailer for the new movie, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, popped up on my Youtube page that I realized there was another Hunger Games story that I’d somehow missed. I’d read the original Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins–really getting caught up in the action in the first book, but losing interest and gaining frustration by the last book. I never made it through all the movies, but it was an intriguing story that stuck with me. Thus, after watching the trailer, I immediately […]



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