Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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CoffeeShopReader's Reviews:

In which the villainess and final boss might be worth rooting for

I'm the Villainess So I'm Taming the Final Boss vols. 1-2 by Anko Yuzu, Sarasa Nagase, Mai Murasaki

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I’ve been following another series in which the protagonist wakes up to realize she’s been reincarnated into a dating sim video game as the villainess and has to use whatever knowledge she has of the game from her previous life to not end up dead/exiled/or whatever other fantasy ending the villainess might end up with. The basic premise of I’m the Villainess So I’m Taming the Final Boss takes that premise and actually gives it some interesting characters and situations that add a little bit […]

Medieval Mean Girls

Matrix by Lauren Groff

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I both do and do not understand how Matrix could possibly have made it onto “Best Books” lists for 2021. I hated the narrative style of first person present combined with free indirect discourse with a touch of narrative omniscience. I do not enjoy first person present narration in the first place and the ambiguity and unbalance between knowing what Marie thinks and feels, but also displaying knowledge of things Marie does not know (or at least not yet) just did not work for me. […]

Fartleks are Funny

How to make Yourself Poop and 999 Other Tips All Runners Should Know by Meghan Kita

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Long-ish story short, when most everything shut down mid-March 2020, I was forced to start running outdoors a lot more in order to keep up my fitness which is important to me. By late fall that year, I decided to start adding distance. Spring 2021, I’d signed up for my first half marathon; it went virtual to no one’s surprise. I found one not far from me that October, which also ended up going virtual right before the race was supposed to happen; I found […]

Not a bad ending but a little uneven with the science and the story

Cells at Work! vol. 6 by Akane Shimizu

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There’s seems to have been some drama behind the scenes before Cells at Work! Vol. 6 came out; a few years ago (pre-pandemic I think) it was listed for pre-order then disappeared. Now, it’s out as the final volume of the original series that’s now got a few spin-offs and an animation. Overall, the basic premise of real biology science presented through manga/anime tropes is still here and fun, although maybe worn a touch thin in places. This volume feels a bit more episodic than […]

Midwestern High End but how Representational Is it?

Dishing Up Minnesota by Teresa Marrone

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Imagine a regional cookbook that includes recipes from that region but also from farms/mills/markets/etc and from various cultures related to the region, with some background and history to help connect everything; that’s Dishing Up Minnesota. I may be biased, having been born and raised in that state, but it also means that I actually know something about the food culture of that part of the country. Some ingredient and recipes are obvious necessities, such as a wild rice soup, at least one or two walleye […]

A Kafna, a Kokwa, a Kadoh, and a Kokopah walk into a classroom and I don’t know what all this means

Magus of the Library vol 4 by Mitsu izumi

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I saw a cartoon a long time ago (XKCD I suspect) that suggested that the more made-up terminology a fantasy story had, the more suspicious of quality it might be. Magus of the Library (vol. 4) is a partial example behind why this might be so; what’s being set up is actually interesting and I like the world so far, but since it’s been a while since I’ve read volume 3, there are quite a few technical terms about the fantasy world that I don’t […]



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