Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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About Ale

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I'm TAing in creative writing, and I'm in the midst of editing my first novel. Along with CBR, I have book reviews published with "The Literary Review," short essay with "Fiction Southeast" and a forthcoming publication with "The Book Smuggler's Den." CBR has definitely helped my writing skills since now I know what readers are looking for for in their works. So, thank you, CBR! Hopefully someday, we'll be able to review my novel on this blog. :) (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Ale's Quick Questions interview.)

Ale's Reviews:

The Poor Have Always Been With Us

October 17, 2017 by Ale 8 Comments

HALF CANNONBALL! I picked this audio book off the shelf at a library wine tasting because of it’s catchy Title. I mean, how can you see the glaring title, “White Trash,” and not be intrigued? And I haven’t listened to an audio book in a while, so it seemed like a good idea. And it was, mostly. White Trash chronologically unpacks the history of white poverty in America from the 1600s to 2012. Isenberg begins with the English penal colonies where the British government literally rounded […]

Filed Under: History Tagged With: class, Nancy Isenberg, non fiction, poverty, Race, white trash

Ale's CBR9 Review No:26 · Genres: History · Tags: class, Nancy Isenberg, non fiction, poverty, Race, white trash ·
Rating:
· 8 Comments

More Gorgeous Prose

October 17, 2017 by Ale Leave a Comment

I have decided to take the plunge and read the whole Raven Cycle series since I haven’t done a good submersion into a series in a while. Stiefvater’s beautiful prose does not disappoint in volume 2, The Dream Thieves. I am absolutely in love with this woman’s craft. Her brilliant syntax and poetic descriptions are at times so perfect and poignant, it hurts. It literally makes me think about her book whenever I’m not reading it. I blew through this volume in about 2 days because I […]

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: Blue, Dreams, Maggie Stiefvater, magic, Psychics

Ale's CBR9 Review No:25 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult · Tags: Blue, Dreams, Maggie Stiefvater, magic, Psychics ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Oh, Imperialism….

October 10, 2017 by Ale Leave a Comment

  Somehow I never heard about this book until I read Sir Pratchett’s non-fiction where he references it. I don’t know how I could have missed this awesome story, but I’m glad I picked it up to read on vacation. In normal Pratchett fashion, it’s hilarious, provocative, and deep. In happenstance, it was also interesting to read about a small island nation that gets hit with a hurricane while vacationing in a small island nation that narrowly missed a hurricane. “Nation” encompasses two interlocking stories, […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: catastrophe, Imperialism, islands, nation, Terry Pratchett

Ale's CBR9 Review No:24 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: catastrophe, Imperialism, islands, nation, Terry Pratchett ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

The Nature of the Unknown

October 1, 2017 by Ale 2 Comments

  This book felt a lot like Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane. Very quietly brooding, the horrors sneak up on your when you’re not looking. There is little dialog and the characters have no names, but that takes nothing away from the simplistic beauty of this story. A female biologist and a group of four other women are sent on an expedition to the strange and uncanny Area X, where their mission is to record data on the un-peopled area and figure out […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer, nature, post apocol

Ale's CBR9 Review No:23 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer, nature, post apocol ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

I Think I Finally Love YA Again

September 25, 2017 by Ale 1 Comment

In a nutshell, this book is what I had hoped The Mortal Instruments series would have been, and as you know from my review of City of Bones, I was less than happy with the cliches, teenage drama, and terrible love triangle. I’m happy to report that literally NONE of that exists in The Raven Boys. Even though the characters are all high schoolers, and they do believable high school things, this was a mature plot with mature characters. It tackled big issues in comprehensive ways, and even though there […]

Filed Under: Young Adult Tagged With: Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Boys, Stiefvater, YA fiction

Ale's CBR9 Review No:22 · Genres: Young Adult · Tags: Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Boys, Stiefvater, YA fiction ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

Right In the Feels, Every Time

September 5, 2017 by Ale Leave a Comment

This book destroys me every time. Everything about it so so achingly beautiful and also so vividly terrifying. It’s a thin and unassuming little book that turns on you about 3 pages in and I love it. Gaiman perfectly captures the reminiscing of childhood and the actual child perspective in the same story as our narrator remembers a terrible event that happens when he’s seven. But Gaiman makes a remarkable craft choice in that he writes most of the narrative from the seven year-old’s point […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: #Gaiman, dark fairy tale, fairytale, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

Ale's CBR9 Review No:21 · Genres: Uncategorized · Tags: #Gaiman, dark fairy tale, fairytale, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
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