Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

A Sweet Spin on Shakespeare

Midsummer's Mayhem by Rajani LaRocca

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I am a regular listener of the podcast The Worst Bestsellers. While the hosts often read and make gentle fun of some very popular books, they also recommend books to read instead of the bestseller. This book was recommended and I really enjoyed it. Midsummer’s Mayhem is a cute confection of a book for readers ages 8-12 and loosely follows the plot of a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mimi Jackson is 11, living with her two older sisters and one older brother. One day, a new […]

If stealing from dragons is bad, what about stealing for them?

Never Steal from Dragons by Patrick Dugan

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Never Steal From Dragons is a fun cozy sci-fi/fantasy heist adventure. A lot of the expected tropes are present: a group of very highly skilled but very different individuals are forcibly assembled by a mysterious powerful individual who wants them to steal something in return for basically making their dreams come true; it is of course an offer that cannot be refused. Chaos, clever remarks, etc. ensues. In the world of Harmony, there are any number of beings recognizable from folklore including pixies, dragons, kitsune, […]

Story ARC

Death Comes Too Late by Charles Ardai

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I received an advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.  I love Hard Case Crime novels. I do not always love short story collections. Short stories are fine for what they are: brief and occasionally visceral peaks into the window of whatever context they are examining. I prefer a long, drawn out tale to sink my teeth into, but I do appreciate those who can move an entertain with a limited scope. Given that the best noirs rely on sparseness, […]

The Two Towers: Pippin is just a stand-in for Tolkien’s son right?

The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

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I’m back from my second visit to OG Middle Earth and I have thoughts. Remember, you brought this on yourselves. I remember noticing a difference in Star Trek once Roddenberry was no longer involved. He was really hung up on the idea that there can’t ever be conflict among the crew, because in his perfect future, we’ve literally grown out of interpersonal conflict. And it was *boring* because it didn’t make sense. Even in a perfect world, it is impossible for there never to be […]

Not my favorite Connie Willis

Passage by Connie Willis

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780 pages! Oof. Joanna (Dr. Lander) works at hospital, doing research into near death experiences (NDEs). She works with a nurse in the ER who pages her every time a patient codes and is revived so she can run to their bedside and ask about their near death experience. A doctor looking into the physical causes of NDEs comes to the hospital wanting to partner with her. They struggle to get enough research subjects, so Joanna eventually agrees to go under with the experimental drug […]

The Snail, the Pumpkin and the Squash

Stories of the Islands by Clar Angkasa

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Three gorgeously illustrated, feminist-twist folktales, myths, stories are included in Stories of the Islands by Clar Angkasa (Clar pronounced like Clark without the k) based their stories on the ones of their childhood, adding what might not seem at first “girl power” but will become that, to each one. There are some mature themes (the giant wants to eat the girl, the father is abusive to his daughters, a village thinks that a woman who is single with no children is odd and tells her […]



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