Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Things That Go Bump at the Dinner Table

Fears: Tales of Psychological Horror by Ellen Datlow (editor)

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In this anthology of psychological horror, we encounter killers, madmen, and twisted families in this presentation of the many shades of human depravity. My preferred subgenre of horror is psychological horror. Here there’s no ghosts or curses or demons – just the strange and terrifying excesses of human nature. The horror is enhanced by the fact that, bar the occasional tinge of the supernatural, everything that happened in this book could happen in real life. All of the stories included in this book were originally […]

A Pair of Library Books

A Treachery of Swans by A.B. Poranek

The Geographer's Map to Romance  by India Holton

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A Treachery of Swans by A.B. Poranek – 4 stars Odile, the adoptive daughter of a sorcerer, must steal the identity of the beautiful Marie, get herself engaged to the crown prince, and get her hands on the only remnant of magic in the kingdom to bring it back everywhere. But when a brutal murder rocks the palace, Odile finds herself turning to an unexpected ally – Marie herself. Guys, I’m obsessed with the cover. This book is more inspired by Swan Lake than a true retelling, […]

Winter, spring, summer and fall, all ya gotta do is read the poems

Poems for Every Season by Bette Westera and David Colmer

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A while back I requested several picture books from an online reader site. One of them was Poems for Every Season by Bette Westera and David Colmer (translator). I was not sure what I would get. I mean I figured poems and seasons (and of course most likely poems about seasons), but I did not have super high expectations. I figured things would be good, but not great. Plus, I just did not want to be disappointed as I had been a lot before (and since) reading […]

Zora Neale Hurston looking for gold

Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories: A Tall Tale Based on the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston by Giselle Anatol and Raissa Figueroa

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I did not love nor hate Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories: A Tall Tale Based on the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston by Giselle Anatol and Raissa Figueroa as the illustrator. It was an experience book where after reading you need to stop and think about it. You need to take your time in the first place and I would even recommend a second read.. It was interesting and different but had a familiar overtone as well. Taking the life experiences […]

The business of empire and myth making

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

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There are a few different layers through which to view this book. At the top, there is the story between the knight and the scholar, two people intertwined across time, who are in a loop and keep reliving the same story, with variations, and have a strong connection and love, and whether they can ever break the cycle and get their happy ending. It is a story about storytelling – something Harrow seems to be more and more interested in with the Spindle Splintered novels […]

Don’t Call Me Shirley

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

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Marjorie Morgenstern lives with her parents on Central Park West in the 1930s. She’s a good girl despite how frequently she argues with her mother. She does well in school and is well-liked socially, being especially popular with the boys because of her good looks and sweet disposition. She is in short, a very ordinary American girl. Except the last thing Marjorie wants to be is ordinary. The easiest thing in the world for her to do would be to go to work as a […]



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