Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About wicherwill

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She/her. Longtime lurker, goodreads addict :D (Learn more about this Cannonballer: wicherwill's Quick Questions interview.)

wicherwill's Reviews:

My poor confused nerves, both cerebral and sensing

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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From a review I saw: “70% of deliberate confusing insanity before reaching the big payoff in the final 100 pages of the book,” and has anything been more truth? I posted an update at 10% of the book, going “ah I get what’s going on,” or something similar, and as it were I was right. But even with that, even with that thread of thought keeping me grounded, I fell asleep pretty consistently for the first 55% of this book. On one hand, I was […]

How many Beauty and the Beast retellings can I get through? Many

When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James

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I enjoy these fairy tale retellings quite a bit! There’s something very Georgette Heyer about the way that Eloisa James writes dialogue, in the exact vein of my favorite works of hers (The Grand Sophy*, Cotillion). All heroines are sparkling wits (and may or may not be beauties) who clash verbal swords with broody male leads and/or secondary characters (conservative ladies who hold the keys to Almack’s, clearly unsuited secondary male leads). Not everything is the same, of course–both of these novels take place in foreboding castles far […]

Two out of three in Caste bingo (is not a game I want to win)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

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I imagine at the end of the day this book is more like 3.5 stars that I am rounding up. I’d say it’s three star for what it is trying to do, but four stars if I take it at what (I thought) was face value. Which is to say, I just finished this book and feel 50/50 convinced by Wilkerson’s thesis that America suffers from a caste issue, as opposed to (or, above a) race issue. I am Indian-American, so taking a step back […]

It’s a Wonderful Life (Now With Books!)

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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CW: suicide, suicidal ideation This was an interesting premise but has some deep (spoiler-y) flaws in the magical element that make it hard to get behind it from an entirely logical perspective. The not-spoiler part (available as part of book’s blurb): sometimes, instead of dying, you end up in a midway point which, for our protagonist, takes the form of an endless library in which it is always midnight and which is librarian’d by her old middle school librarian. You can read any of the […]

Is there a non-Prom way to get a crown?

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

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I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did, unfortunately. A gay-verging-on-bi WOC lead discovering herself and chasing her dreams in high school? It’s definitely up there on the list and I was pretty excited when it came off of hold. The issue was that the main premise never stopped feeling incredibly contrived, to the point of distraction. And while I acknowledge the need for some driving force to get Liz to do all the things she did, there’s enough emotional heft […]

Bookclub re-read: were we ever this young???

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

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I have had this book for years now, evidentially procured from some sort of bookstore or library because there’s a sticker on the spine. I’ve read it and re-read it many times while home. This time, I re-read it in preparation for book club, theme of which is “a book from your childhood/young adulthood which talked about adulthood which, now that you are an adult, reads very differently.” Which is a long winded way of saying, things aren’t always what they seem when you were […]



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