Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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CoffeeShopReader's Reviews:

Old Magic in Not Too Old Times Past

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

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The Left Handed Booksellers of London sounds like an interesting premise, and thankfully one that gets pulled off reasonably well. One thing I will say right off is that it’s a lot more interesting if you know a little bit about British or Celtic folklore; I also think the 1980s setting doesn’t get enough attention and that’s a totally missed opportunity. In a lot of ways the story is pretty standard: country child comes to the big city to pursue an education and find the […]

The Neverending Battles Get Old

Black Clover vols. 28-31 by Yuki Tabata

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I hadn’t realized how long I’d kind of ignored the Black Clover manga series until I was in the library and saw that I was at least 4 volumes behind; this seems to happen with shonen fighting-based series an awful lot – the pattern of lots of fights with sudden power-ups that feel preprogrammed because the user automatically knows what and how to use the newly developed ability. I’ve gotten behind/bored with quite a few series where this happens; at least Yugi-Oh! had the sense […]

Very Dumb Name for a Not-So Dumb Character

My Gently Raised Beast vol. 1 by Yeosulki, Teava, Early Flower

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So random mindless entertainment impulse buy at WalMart turns out to be slightly less mindless than I’d assumed. My Gently Raised Beast v.1 is about an orphan girl discovering she’s a princess when her emperor father has her brought to the palace, but given her peasant upbringing and non-noble mother, no one is nice to her. She makes friends with a kitty, who turns out to be pretty special etc. Besides the pretty standard plot, the MC’s name doesn’t get much more cliché: “Blondina” may […]

Murder, Magic, Mystery, and Maud’s f*ck lessons

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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Murder on a trans-oceanic voyage? Magic probably involved? Somewhat sheltered aristocratic girl and a an actress teaming up (in more ways than one)? Sounds like a fine Galentine’s read to me. I have to admit, I liked the first volume of this series, but didn’t totally love it. I almost liked this one better; strange as it sounds, it’s almost more realistic, in spite of the ghosts and magic that crop up off and on the entire time. I think the predetermined timeframe of there’s […]

The Title is Slightly Too Accurate

Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk

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I’m in two minds about this one; on the one hand the characters and the mystery are good, but on the other the ending feels rushed and certain important parts of the world feel a little underdeveloped. That said, in general Even Though I Knew the End was a fun, fast read. In a world that resembles  Dashiell Hamnet if he wrote vaguely Christian supernatural detectives, Helen is a former rising start in the magic world, cast out when she tried to summon a demon […]

Make your own meat and cheese without involving animals

Fake Meat Real Food for Vegan Appetites by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

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It looks like the theme for vegan cooking for early 2023 is make your own meat substitutes. The newest entry to this group is Fake Meat by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. The author is basically the OG of modern approachable vegan cooking. She’s also my only cookbook automatic pre-order any and all new titles. Most previous Isa books are “vegan for beginners” in nature, in that they feature more readily available ingredients and normal cooking standard processes. This time, things gets a little more advanced. There’s […]



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