Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About narfna

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Good evening, everyone. I'm Leslie Monster, and this is Nightline. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: narfna's Quick Questions interview.)

narfna's Reviews:

I’m so curious what Jemisin will do next.

The World We Make (Great Cities, #2) by N.K. Jemisin

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This was a good ending to this series. It’s still not my favorite thing from N.K. Jemisin, but I very much enjoyed reading it (and it’s a fast read). I’m also glad that we didn’t get the original story or ending that Jemisin had planned (she talks about it in her author’s note); it sounded much bleaker and the series was originally going to be a trilogy instead of a duology. We’ve done the bleak N.K. Jemisin trilogy before. I appreciate that this ended on […]

I’m so sad about it, but this was so flawed.

The Sunbearer Trials (The Sunbearer Duology, #1) by Aiden Thomas

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This was fine. But “fine,” after reading this author’s wonderful debut, Cemetery Boys, is not enough. I feel like there were so many flaws baked in to this book before the author even started writing it, and they didn’t do enough to overcome them. The worldbuilding choices made in this book baffled me, and it read like a middle grade novel with f-bombs thrown in. (Not good when you’re aiming for upper YA.) Gonna bullet point this one to sort out my thoughts. *This was pitched […]

“‘Why would anyone love a monster?’ asked Perseus. ‘Who are you to decide who is worthy of love?’ said Hermes. ‘I mean, I wasn’t…’ ‘And who are you to decide who is a monster?’”

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

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I knew I was going to like this, but I didn’t quite expect to like it as much as I did. Sometime in the near future, we’re going to hit the saturation point for Greek mythology retellings in the literary marketplace, but it seems we’re at the peak right now, and it can be hard to sort out the copycat clones from the worthwhile without reading them first. Stone Blind is one of the worthwhile. It’s not enough to just retell a myth, even if you are […]

Wow, what a bummer.

The Night Ship by Jess Kidd

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It’s actually pretty impressive how this book could take super interesting subject matter and make it this dull. This book did absolutely nothing for me, except make me wish it was over. I can’t entirely pinpoint why, so I’m chalking it up to disliking the style it was written in, but there were also some baked-in flaws that could have made it better for me. This is a dual-timeline story, one in 1628 following a young Dutch girl whose mother has just died, who is […]

“Even small actions have consequences. And while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.”

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

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Backing Brandon Sanderson’s Secret Project Kickstarter is one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Tress of the Emerald Sea is the first of those four secret novels Sanderson wrote during the pandemic when he wasn’t touring and had some “free time” on his hands. Of course what Brando Sando does on his free time is write more books, because he famously takes a break from writing to recharge by writing something else. The guy is a straight up nerd and I’m so glad […]

“With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.”

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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Despite very recently giving five stars to the latest Grady Hendrix weirdo horror book (review HERE), I was surprised by how much I liked this. As I’ve been exploring the horror genre over the past year, I’ve learned that my tastes usually run towards the lighter end of the horror spectrum, and that I don’t do well with gore and violence just for gore and violence’s sake*. I need that sort of thing to have a purpose, and I need it to not make me […]



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