Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But How Do You Poop?”

Words of Radiance: Book 2 of the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson

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While a book titled Words of Radiance feels like its review title should be something much more lofty, “But how do you poop?” was one of my favorite lines in this book because it was so awesome and unexpected. Sanderson’s greatest feat in a series like this is that he and the characters don’t take themselves too seriously. Yes, there are gut-wrenching, serious, dark moments, but Sanderson balances that with a bouncy levity that’s borderline Pratchett in its honesty. At one point, Shallan asks one of the […]

Getting Back in the High Fantasy Game

The Way of Kings: Book One of the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson

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I will preface this review by saying this kind of writing used to be my jam. I inhaled massive high fantasy series in high school and college, exclusively reading Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Mark Lawrence, Patrick Rothfuss,  and GRR Martin. But then I joined CBR and started reading more widely. I fell out of love with the war-heavy, white male centric doorstops and found a new home in magical realism and the glory of a one-book wonder. Aside from rereading Tolkien, I’ve had a hard […]

Why did people insist I not start here?

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

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So I think we were all here for my very late discovery of Booktube and Brandon Sanderson. And so far, I have clearly noticed that no matter how many fantasy booktubers I watch, they all have different opinions on how to approach the Cosmere. Which is, you know, to be expected on a 20+ book-universe spanning different series. But the one thing they all seem to agree on is that you should not start with Elantris. The reasons vary, but most of all they seem […]

Re-reading Mistborn, Era One – Part I: The Final Empire

Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1) by Brandon Sanderson

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This one is interesting to consider on re-read. I read it pretty early in my first journey through Sanderson’s work. It was the third, I think, after Elantris and The Way of Kings, and I wasn’t anywhere used to his shenanigans yet. It seems much tamer and less complex the second time around, especially since I’ve been swimming in the nonsense going on in the Stormlight Archive for four enormous books now (beautiful, wonderful nonsense). Parts of it were less interesting this time, and parts […]

Practicing What You Preach

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

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Okay, I said I was only doing writing non-fiction for Cannonball 13, but this epic fantasy is related to learning how to write. I took his 13-hour BYU writing class (on YouTube) and found it very informative. I decided I probably should read one of his books. Turns out Elantris is his first published work, and a good example of his classroom lessons. Elantris is an epic fantasy in every definition of the word. At over 600 pages, it follows the lives of three main […]

How late was I to discover Booktube?

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

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I tend to be very chatty, so please skip ahead to each book for the individual reviews if you do not want TMI about my life. 🙂 So clearly, I have lived under a rock for the past 10 years or so. There is no other explanation for why it took a pandemic for me to realize people actually made videos about books and posted them online. I’ve been reading reviews on Goodreads and blogs and Amazon/Audible before buying books for years, but never did […]



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