Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Halloween Carnival Volume 1

Halloween Carnival Volume 1 by Brian James Freeman

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All in all, the stories work and are 5 star reads. There is just one that felt a bit unfinished and honestly way too goofy to be in this collection. But this is a nice little appetizer if you want to read something to get you in the Halloween mood. “Strange Candy” by Robert McCammon (5 stars)-What to say. This man can write anything and even if not all of them work for me, he can still get you in the feels. I loved this […]

Putting the fun in dysfunctional

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

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Cbr14bingo Holiday/bingo Holidays on Ice is a collection of David Sedaris essays, some previously published and some new, all related to holidays. Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Halloween are all represented through autobiographical reflections as well as imaginative fictional stories. If you are unfamiliar with Sedaris, you should know that his writing is both hilarious and often shocking. He has a talent for making very inappropriate and unsettling statements but often in such a funny way that you laugh anyway. Like many people I became familiar […]

I need merchandise to go with my books!

Cursed Princess Club Volume One by Lambcat

Cursed Princess Club Volume Two by Lambcat

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Cursed Princess Club Volume One created by Lambcat is a WebToons special. In January 2023 volumes one and two (the summer of 2023) will be (hopefully) published in a physical format (as long as there are no broken-down trucks, snowstorms, printing issues, or acts of the Great Spaghetti Monster). When the King of the Pastel Kingdom wakes his children in the morning, one is sleeping in the flowers that grows wherever she is, one has birds and critters brushing her hair, one is delighting and sparkling […]

The Language of Thorns

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo

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Absolutely fantastic. This was so good I didn’t want it to end. Bardugo does an excellent job with the stories and Kipin’s illustrations evokes the fairy tale setting and characters so well. I may just buy this in hardback for the illustrations alone. These stories are a great blend of retellings as well as something darker that leaks into each story that makes it just as much a cautionary tale as Grimm’s original fairy tales. Here are my ratings for all of the stories, but […]

Blame It on the Pumpkin

Blame it On the Pumpkin by Tara Moeller

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Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Ahh, a very nice Halloween anthology series. I really enjoyed the stories for the most part, there were just two stories that did not work for me. I am realizing now after reading other’s reviews that some of the stories were not everyone’s cup of tea. Probably because most of the readers wanted more horror and not gallows humor that seemed to run through some of the stories. […]

Some Award Nominees and other books

Maria Maria and Other Stories by Marytza K. Rubio

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

Shutter by Ramona Emerson

The Bird Catcher by Gayl Jones

The Shadow Puppet by Georges Simenon

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Maria Maria and other stories – 3/5 I picked up this book because it was nominated for the National Book Award, and it reminds me of how dubious I often am of story collections being nominated for fiction prizes that should probably go to novels. This is a perfectly good collection of stories, with some stories really standing out like the opening story in which a witch is dealing with a troublesome class of new students in a college witching class. Other stories that stand […]



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