Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Never Trust the Fae

Stars, Hide Your Fire by Kel McDonald, Jose Pimienta

by Leave a Comment

Somewhere in Massachusetts, two best friends, Darra and Andrea, struggle with the reality of growing up and growing apart. As they start high school and consider their futures, one wants to stay put while the other can’t wait to get away, which inevitably strains their friendship. When they break into an abandoned, supposedly haunted factory and the ghostly woman trapped there offers one of them eternal youth, they accidentally unleash something sinister on their unsuspecting small town. I really liked this one, which is unsurprising […]

Angry Mothers Raise Daughters Fierce Enough to Fight Wolves

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo

by 1 Comment

Reviews for the Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo! I’m reviewing in the order they were published, but they are connected by place rather than plot, and can be read in any order.   The Empress of Salt and Fortune Chih is a cleric of the Singing Hills Monastery who travels the world to catalog, record, and document histories. Rabbit is the former servant of the exiled empress In-Yo. As Chih catalogs the contents of Rabbit’s house, Rabbit shares with them bits of stories related […]

Will This Be the Year the Earth Refuses to Forgive Us?

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

by Leave a Comment

Notes from the Burning Age deposits its readers sometime between Mad Max and The Broken Earth. The world that seems in the first chapter to be an unknown, fantastical place, is actually a snapshot of a future Earth, its landscape shifted by centuries of exploitation. Eventually, it seems the Earth fought back, defending itself by unleashing fearsome spiritual creatures called the kakui, who, depending on who you ask, burnt the world or saved it from the burning. Regardless, it was a hefty price that humanity […]

“By the time you’re my age, you’ll realize that everything you once thought mattered so much turns out to mean very little.”

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin

by 1 Comment

Cannonball Read Square: Star I received this book as a gift for the Cannonball Read Book Exchange last year, so that alone bumped it up my to-read pile. I’ve gotten more into science fiction in the past few years, and I’m always excited to read from non-American viewpoints, so it was an obvious choice for me. I’m a sucker for award winners, and this book won the Hugo Award and Liu Cixin is the nine time (!) winner of China’s Galaxy Award and Ken Liu […]

Franz Kafka got together with Charles Dickens and wrote an episode of the X-Files based on Little Shop of Horrors

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

by 1 Comment

CBR BINGO 14: Funky: Where Steampunk meets your nightmares “The city reeked. But today was market day down in Aspic Hole, and the pungent slick of dung-smell and rot that rolled over New Crobuzon was, in these streets, for these hours, improved with paprika and fresh tomato, hot oil and fish and cinnamon, cured meat, banana and onion.” Those two sentences, from the second paragraph of Chapter 1 of Period Street Station, captivated me: the delicious smells of a bustling market intermingling with the filth […]

A More Interesting Way to Do Hogwarts

Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by T. L. Huchu

by Leave a Comment

Bingo 14: Snake Quick notice: because Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments is new acquisition at my local library, it had a shorter checkout period with no renewal so I had to give it back before getting to write about it; I may not be as totally sure of certain details as a result. The snake theme actually works on more than one level here because there is indeed a hospital and mysterious affliction that is affecting school boys in the magical community, and Ropa gets […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo