Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About pixifer

CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant

I'm an avid reader working on my second official Cannonball. My favorite genres are mystery, horror, fantasy, and SciFi, but I'll read almost anything that won't make me cry. When I'm not reading, I'm probably being held down by cats. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: pixifer's Quick Questions interview.)

pixifer's Reviews:

A great series goes out with a whimper

The King of Crows by Libba Bray

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The King of Crows is the fourth and final book in the Diviners series.  The series is about a group of superpowered teenagers in 1920s New York City. Evie can read objects to learn about the owners; Memphis can heal diseases and injuries; Theta has fire that shoots out from her body; Henry can walk in people’s dreams and influence their dreams; Ling can walk in dreams to talk to the dead; Isaiah sees the future; Sam can become invisible; Jericho has superhuman strength and […]

Recursion is repetitive

Recursion by Blake Crouch

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Recursion is about memory, time, and how the human brain processes and perceives both.  New York City detective Barry Sutton is investigating False Memory Syndrome, a terrifying condition spreading across the US. Victims have memories of a life they never lived. Sometimes the false life feels more real than their actual life, causing heartbreak and occasionally suicide.  Helena Smith is a neuroscientist trying to find a way to record memories and reimplant them in the brain in order to help Alzheimer’s patients remember their lives. […]

Great writing makes this live up to the hype

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Daisy Jones and the Six is the oral history of a 70s rock supergroup. The band starts as two brothers, Billy and Graham, and their friends in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As the band sees success, they move to California. They record a single with Daisy Jones, an up-and-coming singer and local “it” girl. Daisy and Billy instantly hate one another because they see the parts of themselves they hate in each other.  The book chronicles their rise to stardom. Billy and Daisy are the stars of […]

A middling Daisy Dalrymple story, but the characters make it worth reading

The Corpse at the Crystal Palace by Carola Dunn

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This review is specifically for The Corpse at the Crystal Palace but I’m including my thoughts on the Daisy Dalrymple series as a whole. The series takes place in England in the 1920s. The main character is Mrs. Daisy Fletcher (née the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple). Daisy is the youngest daughter of an English aristocrat and is married to Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of the New Scotland Yard. Daisy keeps accidentally finding dead bodies and feels compelled to help Alec with his investigations. She is often […]

Historical cozy mystery set in a manor house with spies and ghosts

A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan

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It’s 1917 England and Kate Cartwright works in intelligence. Her boss, simply known as C, instructs her to attend a house party at Blackwater Abbey and to take her fiancé with her. Two problems: Kate has already declined the invitation to the house party, and she broke off her engagement. C tells her too bad, her presence at Blackwater Abbey is a matter of national security. Top-secret weapons plans from England have been discovered in Berlin, and C has heard that the traitor or traitors […]

The Broken Girls is a creepy page-turner

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

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After the Sun Down Motel, I went in search of Simone St. James’s other books. The Broken Girls had the best reviews, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to read about teenage girls whose families had abandoned them. I’m glad I checked it out! It wasn’t quite as breathtaking as the Sun Down Motel, but it is really good.  2014: Twenty years ago, Fiona’s older sister, Deb, was murdered by her boyfriend and her body dumped on the grounds of a former boarding school named […]



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