Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I must offer a piece of advice: ’tis dangerous to meddle in the affairs of witches”

Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

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Serpent & Dove is another Libby find, while searching for a Fantasy romance. It’s…fine! This is a young adult book (and it shows) set in a world roughly equivalent to 17th century France. Our main character, Lou (short for Louise), is a witch. She has run away from her coven to the city, and is making her living as a thief. We gather that Lou is running away from something bad, and is more or less in hiding from the members of her coven. She […]

Gendered correctly by President Jimmy Carter.

Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place (A Transgender Memoir) by Jackson Bird

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I really enjoyed this transgender memoir, and I really enjoy Jackson Bird, as it turns out! Before we get to the millionaire-author-sized elephant in the room, this is a pretty basic memoir about Jackson’s life from birth to his late twenties, with a specific focus on his struggles with gender and sexuality before finally coming out as a trans man at age 25. This was an extremely solid book, told with clear uncomplicated prose, and an impressive sense of self-reflection. As a cis person, I […]

Do I like YA fantasy again???

This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra, #1) by Emily Thiede

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Thanks to Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Young Readers, and NetGalley for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the content of my review. Well, this was an impulse request on NetGalley, and despite some complaints (mostly centered around this being a debut, I think), overall I did like this and I will be reading the sequel. The premise here is that our main character Alessa is a Chosen One, but she’s kinda sucky at it, and she’s lonely and miserable. She is the Finestra (Italian for “Window,” which […]

“Be careful with the stories you tell about yourself”

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

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Untamed is a memoir. It’s also a call to arms. And a self-help book. Mostly, though, it’s the story of a woman blowing up her life to build a better one, and her interrogation of why she had a life that required blowing up in order to find happiness. Glennon Doyle has written a couple of other books, and also had a wildly successful TED talk which is all about courage and vulnerability and the armor that we put around ourselves to protect us from […]

Finishing the Black Stars series

These Alien Skies by C. T. Rwizi

We Travel the Spaceways by Victor LaValle

2043...(A Merman I Should Turn to Be) by Nisi Shawl

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Getting back on my reviews with Cannonball Read 14 Bingo! I liked all three of the remaining stories from the Black Stars anthology. I highly recommend you check them out on audiobook. Bingo Square: Star “These Alien Skies” was my favorite story from this round. Two human space explorers are sent through a wormhole on a mission to find habitable worlds. Before we can really get to know Msizi and Tariro, an accidental explosion (or was it) sends their ship crash landing on a planet […]

This is the slasher send-up I wanted

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

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TW: abuse, alcoholism, self-harm, suicide BINGO: COLD [a portion of the story takes place in the frozen Idaho winter; also there are some cold-blooded murders] Jade is obsessed with horror movies. Specifically she loves slashers. She knows everything there is to know about the movies, the plots, the directors, the film-making process, everything. It is her entire life and personality, to a fault. She doesn’t have much else to do in a small town in Proofrock, Idaho. She even weaves in her slasher obsession into her […]



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