Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Archives for December 2021

There are no others like us…and there will never be.

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

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Coming off the high of reading the first couple of A Crown of Thorn and Roses books, I enjoyed the first book in this trilogy but was a little less enthusiastic about it. Compared to the ACOTAR books, well, I just wasn’t feeling the same pull. They share a lot of the same things: heroines who struggle with their “powers,” love triangles, fantastical worlds, but Shadow and Bone didn’t quite suck me into the story as much. I think part of it was having a hard time with the […]

To the blessed darkness from which we are born…And to which we return.

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas

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I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the next book in this series. Expecting a hefty tome like the preceding books, I was kind of disappointed when I picked up this thin little volume from the library. I was ready to tuck in for the long haul, but this 4th book is more like a novella. However, it does take place during Solstice celebrations so slightly festive and somewhat appropriate timing for me to be reading it now. Again, this is book 4 so […]

You’re never going to believe who ended up being my hero.

Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

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When I sat down to compile my best of/worst of list for 2021, Quinn’s books fell on both. I guess you will have to wait until the lists are published in a couple of weeks, but I will say that I credit the Bridgerton series with getting me out of my pandemic reading slump. They were just the page turners to yank me out of my anxiety jumbled brain. Once I dispensed with the “main” books in the series, I had to hunt down all […]

Happiness is a warm puppy

The Puppy Primer by Patricia B. McConnell and Brenda Scidmore

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We are getting a puppy! Well, my boyfriend and I are planning on getting a puppy. We’re trying to buy a house with a yard first, and that’s proving challenging. But someday. Hopefully soon. We both grew up with dogs, but this would be our first dog without parents and siblings to help take care of it. Also, I don’t think my dad used the latest and greatest training techniques. For my part, I’m pretty excited, and I’m taking my future dog ownership very seriously. […]

Witch Hunt!

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

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The mix of modern crime procedurals and the deep stupidity of superstition just didn’t click for me. Katherina Kepler is a war widow (or at least she assumes so, since her husband never came back), and one of her sons is Johannes Kepler, authority on the newly discovered revolutionary laws of planetary motion.  She herself happens to be an authority on herbal remedies, but not everyone in the village has confidence in her treatments.  The random cow has a bad spell, and apparently at some […]

“It’s like the foreign legion for nerds” I said, and laughed.

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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The Kaiju Preservation Society is very definitely a John Scalzi book. In his Afterword, which is worth reading, he describes it as a pop song. It came to him almost fully formed after he finally abandoned a book he describes as “a brooding symphony.” It’s frothy, entertaining and goes down smoothly while pointing out significant cultural issues. The good guys win and the bad guy satisfyingly gets what’s coming to him. I really loved that Scalzi starts this book firmly in our world, in our […]



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