Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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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:

Another feel-good entry from T.J. Klune.

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

by 5 Comments

For me, this needed just a little more dark elements to balance out the schmoop, which is a thing I’m still not fully on board with in terms of Klune’s writing, although it hit me less here than it did in Cerulean Sea. But overall this was a lovely read, like a warm hug. While I do have some criticisms, mostly to do with an overdose of earnestness and not enough subtlety (also known as schmoop), I really did enjoy this book. It was an escape […]

“I grinned stupidly at my whiskey for a few moments. Thinking over my job, which was harrowing. My task, which was nigh impossible. My face, which was mangled. My savings, which no longer existed.”

The Gods of Gotham (Timothy Wilde, #1) by Lyndsay Faye

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Always count on Lyndsay Faye for lots of atmospheric and interesting historical details, and a juicy, emotionally resonant mystery. This wasn’t my favorite of hers, but I’m definitely going to be continuing the series. Timothy Wilde has 400 dollars saved up, and a job tending bar, until a fire devastates his neighborhood, and injures him so severely his face becomes permanently disfigured. It’s 1845, and the NYC police department is in its infancy. There is a potato blight hitting Ireland, and thousands upon thousands of […]

This was a miss for me.

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan

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This was ruined for me by the writing style :\ I feel like it actually walks the line between being written in a style that just wasn’t for me, and actually being poorly put together. Which is a shame! Because this premise has real meat to it. The titular Rukhsana Ali is a Bengali-American teenager, the daughter of Bengali immigrants, and also identifies as a lesbian. She has a girlfriend she’s in love with who is white, and they plan to go away to California […]

Not to my taste.

Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land by N. Scott Momaday

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I think Momaday is just not an author for me. I felt similarly ‘meh’ about his Pulitzer prize winning novel, House Made of Dawn, when I read it in graduate school. His stuff just does not resonate with me. This is a book of prose poems centered on Momaday’s contemplation of the natural world, and in specific the American West, where he has lived his entire life. It’s a small book, focused on Momaday’s own feelings toward the earth, and eventually, humanity’s. No surprise, the central […]

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (The Chronicles of Narnia, #5) by C.S. Lewis

by 2 Comments

I always liked this one as a kid, but it was never my favorite. It had an edge of This Is Too Real about it at the time, which looking back now is hilarious because there is nothing realistic about this book. But as a kid, I found the constant mentions of death and the afterlife (even if just a metaphorical afterlife) disturbing. Which is weird, because in other contexts, I didn’t mind reading about those things. There was just something strange to me, I […]

An extremely good book. Understatement. #CBRBINGO – Landscape

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

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😭😭😭😭😭 Above was my reaction upon finishing this book, which worked its dark magics upon me until my emotions did exactly what it wanted me to do at all times. More on this later. This book also has, I think, the best last line in a novel I’ve read all year. Maybe several years. This book is propulsive and hard to put down. I gave myself almost three days to read it and I read it in half a day. S.A. Cosby, of whom I […]



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