I seem to be on a roll the past few years with my first read of the year being top notch. This year, I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson. It had cropped up a few times in my periphery, on book blogs and the like, and my interest was piqued. My goal for this year is to read more from my library instead of spending a fortune on books (finishing the PhD and only working part time means I’m poor […]
Half-Cannonball? The books I read and didn’t review
I needed to write one more review to reach my goal of a half-cannonball, so here’s a roundup of the books I read and didn’t review this year. Does this still count? Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas. 3 stars. I enjoyed this one, reading it on a 7 hour plane journey. The love triangle was a bit irritating in that the end took a bit of a cop out so that it could be an element in later books, but overall it was […]
Engaging continuation of an epic fantasy that addresses some of the first’s flaws
So I have read a few books since my last post but haven’t written anything up–been too busy finishing my PhD thesis. But it’s submitted, and it’s Christmas, and I am determined to at least ‘officially’ make my half Cannonball goal before the year’s end. So I’m going to write up a few reviews. I devoured An Echo of Things to Come, the sequel to The Shadow of What Was Lost, which I reviewed earlier this year. This first book introduced a world where the magic users, […]
At first intriguing, then merely infuriating
I’m super behind on reviews (tbh, I feel like I’m super behind on life right now as I try to finish the PhD) but I read this one last night and it annoyed me SO MUCH that I had to write a review. Summary: Daniel and Laura are your typical middle-class British holidayers, backpacking around Europe before they decide to settle down, get married, and have a baby. While traveling through Romania, they hit trouble: kicked off a train with only another Romanian woman for […]
A sci-fi introspective on gender and human society
I’m not normally a sci-fi reader, but that was part of the reason I decided to give The Left Hand of Darkness a try: I had an audible credit to use, I wanted to give Le Guin another chance, and the description said this was a classic sci-fi title. I think because I’m not familiar with the genre, the difficulty I’d had with the age of A Wizard of Earthsea didn’t bother me as much here, even though it was originally published in 1969. Sometimes groundbreaking doesn’t […]
A mysterious murder and excess alcohol consumption? Must be an unreliable female narrated thriller…
I’ve been on a bit of a thriller kick recently, so–like many other Cannonballers–I’ve read In a Dark Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. They relied very heavily on the ‘unreliable female narrator’ trope, bringing up inevitable comparisons to The Girl on the Train. They’re not as good as Girl on the Train. (I haven’t read Gone Girl, while I have seen the film, so I can’t compare there.) I’m way behind on my reviewing, but I figured I’d start with these ones. Quick […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- …
- 16
- Next Page »







