Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About ElCicco

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Married, mom of two, history PhD, feminist. I've been participating in Cannonball Read since CBR4. I love to read, and writing reviews keeps me from reading without thinking. I feel like I owe it to the authors who entertain me to savor their creations. It's like slowing down and enjoying a delicious meal instead of bolting your food. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: ElCicco's Quick Questions interview.)

ElCicco's Reviews:

It was the worst of times

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

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Fingersmith is award winning historical fiction set in 1862 London and at a country manor known as Briar. Like a Dickens novel, it features thieves, asylums, poor, rich and table turning, but this work also focuses on women, sex, matters of power/agency and the lack thereof.  The story is told in three parts: two from point of view of Sue Trinder, a 17-year-old orphan and fingersmith (thief), and one from point of view of 17-year-old Maud Lilly, who is an orphan and an heiress. Both […]

How I Met Your Monster

The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter: The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Book 1 by Theodora Goss

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This YA novel, the first in a trilogy, introduces the reader to the members of the Athena Club. It is their origin story. What is the Athena Club? It is a group of young women in London ca. 1900 who have one thing in common — a monstrous past! They are Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Catherine Moreau, Justine Frankenstein and Beatrice Rappaccini. A series of gruesome murders of prostitutes will bring these young women together with a little help from none other than Sherlock Holmes […]

A Murderbot Murder Mystery

Fugitive Telemetry: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

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Fugitive Telemetry is the latest installment in the Murderbot Diaries but chronologically, its events take place before those of Book 5 (Network Effect) but after Book 4 (Exit Strategy). This is a “whodunnit” set on Preservation Station, where MB’s guardian Dr. Mensah, suffering from PTSD, is a respected Councilor. Preservation Station is a non-corporate entity with a proud history of independence and respect for individual rights, whether one is human, bot or augmented human (a human/bot hybrid). Anyone can come to Preservation Station for sanctuary […]

A Heartwarming Story of Mutual Administrative Assistance

Network Effect: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

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Network Effect is the fifth entry in the Murderbot Diaries and unlike the previous four, which were each about 150 pages, this one goes for 300+. As usual, it’s packed with intrigue and cool fights. This might be my favorite Murderbot (so far) because it involves much of the crew from book 1 as well as Asshole Research Transport (ART) from book 2. The plot involves corporate planetary piracy and an old school malware attack, but it also focuses on Murderbot’s complicated and evolving relationships […]

More Murderbot!

Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

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These are the third and fourth books in The Murderbot Diaries and, like the first two, they are full of intrigue, action and snarky humor. Murderbot, a rogue SecUnit who has been purchased and freed by one of its clients, is still at large, having snuck away from client/guardian Dr. Mensah in order to try to figure out why it murdered a bunch of humans on a previous job. MB’s memory was wiped by the company that owned it, but armed with incredible tech, hacking […]

I didn’t think I liked romance novels

Dress Up In You by MsKingBean89

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The last book I reviewed for CBR13 was a work of Harry Potter fanfic called All the Young Dudes (ATYD). I had submitted my “best/worst of CBR13” list before finishing ATYD, which is a shame because if I had waited, All the Young Dudes would have absolutely been one of my best of the year. I loved MsKingBean89’s imaginative, romantic and tragic story of Remus Lupin and his relationship with Sirius Black, and during the holidays I went back in to AO3 to see if […]



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