Speculative Fiction – Page 60 – Cannonball Read 17

I liked this weird little gremlin book.

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

February 9, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

To be clear, the book isn’t about gremlins, I’m just calling it a gremlin book because it’s weird and small and has claws but is also kind of harmless and laughable in the right light. Also also, gremlin is a fun word to use. This book is impossible to *really* talk about without spoilers, so I’m going to have a pretty big spoiler section and a smaller non-spoiler section in this review. I will try to keep the spoiler section relatively spoiler-free in the sense […]

“This is the year where if you are not careful, you could stand to lose it all. There will be one pregnancy, one funeral, and one marriage. A complete turn around the sun by the next Lunar year. But you must fix your relationship with everyone. And I mean everyone in your family. Starting with your daughters.”

The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh

February 9, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

This was a fun one. The author has said in interviews that she wanted to portray the complexities of Vietnamese American/diaspora relationships between women, and she wanted the women to be messy and make mistakes and have a really hard time not making the same mistakes again and again. So she wrote about a family of cursed Vietnamese women! From the blurb: “Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed. It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave […]

Gentle and Kind, Existential and Grounded: Monk and Robot

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot #1) by Becky Chambers

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot #2) by Becky Chambers

February 1, 2023 by Flimflamingo 7 Comments

First time on Cannonball Reads. First comment on Pajiba two days ago (after 10 years of lurking). First time in years that I’m bothering to review. Thanks for exiting and offering a platform for whatever T H I S is that I need for right now… Which aligns with my reviews for my first reads of 2023 that aren’t library/ work-related: Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot novellas, A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. These two novellas – not sure if we can call them […]

The women of The Odyssey, except eighteen years afterwards, as narrated by Hera.

Ithaca (The Songs of Penelope, #1) by Claire North

January 31, 2023 by narfna 2 Comments

I really, really liked this! Claire North’s writing style translated extremely well to retelling Greek mythology. The undercurrent of female rage and sorrow was pleasing and upsetting at the same time. It’s also darkly funny. I almost feel like I want to re-read this before I write a review so I can get my thoughts more in order, but nobody has time for that. Or, maybe some people do, but I don’t know who they are. I just feel like it was so well done! […]

CBR15 Passport! Book #1 – A book that is Not For Moi.

Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden

January 31, 2023 by narfna 9 Comments

Oof, this was not for me. Like, so not for me that I maybe shouldn’t even be writing a review, because my brain just bounced off this after about ten pages and then just kept bouncing harder and harder. This is a speculative fiction, experimental novel by British poet Salena Godden about an anthropomorphized version of Death (here called Mrs. Death, personified by an older Black woman) and her connections to/conversations with a person called Wolf. In addition to the the prose actually feeling like […]

The darkness inside

Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Ito

January 26, 2023 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

CBR15Passport book set in and author from another country Reading Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection near bedtime is not recommended. Now, it is not so much because the stories are “scary-scary” but because they are warped! Each story is not very long but packed with stuff (and you probably realize I am not saying “stuff”). Yes, things can be creepy, gross (after all, it is horror and somehow the black and white images are almost too realistic in their illustrated manner. I was getting old-black-and-white-1950-thriller/science […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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