Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About J

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Just a girl, sitting in front of a book, wanting it to be good.

J's Reviews:

What it means to be king

How to Catch a Queen (Runaway Royals, #1) by Alyssa Cole

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This might be my favorite Alyssa Cole yet. The story continues in Cole’s established universe–cameo appearances by most of the Reluctant Royals gang. Sanyu is the new king of an isolationist African nation Njaza. Tradition demands that he wed before his father passes away, and his advisors present him with Shanti (found on RoyalMatch.com). Don’t. Stop. I hear you laughing. Just go with it. The thing is, tradition also demands that the king’s marriage is for a four month trial period, after which the queen […]

Ridge City is a mess, y’all.

Bones of the Past by Drew Hayes

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Bones of the Past picks up a few months after Forging Hephaestus left off. Tori, Beverly, and Chloe are sharing an apartment. Doctor Mechaniacal is rebuilding the Guild’s home base. Donald, Rem, and their teammates are doing what they can to regain the public’s trust now that everything is out in the open. And Lodestar is back on duty, fending off alien invasions in between PTA meetings. Life returns to normal. (That Nexus comment at the end of FH, though? You won’t find the resolution […]

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a cookie look smug.

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

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Mona lives in Riverbraid, a city-state where folks with magick live mostly peacefully with their non-magic neighbors. (Other city-states are not so kind, you understand. Some require magickers to register with the government, or lived confined to a ghetto, or serve in the military.) Mona is pretty satisfied with this as her magic is small and, in her opinion, not terribly useful. She’s a bread wizard, useful for saving a loaf from burning, but limited in application otherwise. Then magickers with small gifts like Mona’s […]

A YA cautionary tale for those DNA sites

You Have A Match by Emma Lord

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Alternate title I didn’t have the fortitude to go with: more like parentS trap (I’m funnier in real life.) As far as summer camp adventures go, hiding out at an academic grind sleepaway camp in order to get to know your SURPRISE FULL-BLOODED SISTER and avoid summer school is kind of… okay, I’m not sure it would have ever occurred to me to do it, but The Youth are better than me. So there’s Abby. She’s having a bad year. Her beloved grandfather passed. Her […]

46% of US adults report feeling lonely some or all of the time

We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships by Kat Vellos

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Complaining about the difficulty of making friends as an adult is almost a cliche. Even before the internet became A Thing, US adults regularly reported feeling lonely or disconnected. The average US adult reports they haven’t made a new friend in five years. We miss having friends, and we don’t really know what to do about it. We’re nice people. Why isn’t this easier? Kat Vellos gets it. She’s moved a few times. She knows intimately the frustration of landing in a new city and […]

The kids are alright

Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone

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I finished this lovely novel and immediately downloaded it to my tween’s Kindle so she could read it, too. (She did not. I regret every time I try to make her read something and she insists on choosing her own reading material. It’s the worst.) Dress Coded opens with Molly Frost interviewing her classmate Olivia for a podcast. Olivia is currently the most hated girl in 8th grade. See, Olivia was busted for a dress code violation and in doing so, lost the entire class […]



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