Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

That disappointment when combining 2 great things makes them less good

Breath of the Dragon by Fonda Lee

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I really liked Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga – there was a lot going on so it took a second to get into them but once I was hooked, I couldn’t stop being impressed by what she did: it was an Asian influenced fantasy in a modern day setting with Mafia vibes, and felt very much like The Godfather movies as far as the span of the story. The series starts at a time where old and new are colliding and ends in a world […]

Yvonne Names Three Reasons, But There’s More

Three Reasons To Run (Weddings with the Moks #2) by Jackie Lau

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Oh yes, this is what I’m looking for in a Jackie Lau book. When I received my ARC copy of Three Reasons to Run, I immediately picked up a copy of the first in the series, Four Weddings to Fall in Love to introduce me to the world that Lau would be working in within her larger Toronto-verse. While it was an enjoyable read, it wasn’t the strongest Lau. But I shouldn’t have worried, Three Reasons to Run is a crisp, warm, emotionally resonant book […]

“Zahra and I were complete; we were the sun and the wind, the sky and the earth, life and death, above the world and untouchable.”

The Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

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I was a big fan of Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga, so when I stumbled on this novella, I was thrilled! In the sprawling Green Bone Saga, Lee crafted a dynasty in which 10s of key actors loved and hated and fought and died over several countries and thousands of pages. In The Untethered Sky, Lee narrows the scope to a single girl and her bird – well, never her bird, but the bird that she tends. I didn’t read the blurb on this book, […]

He couldn’t tell them that the right one had come along, and it was the pissed-off Russian man heading to the penalty box.

Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2) by Rachel Reid

The Long Game (Game Changers #6) by Rachel Reid

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Heated Rivalry Ilya smiled to himself. He actually loved this. He loved being on the road, and disappointing home crowds across North America. He loved the insults, the booing, and, most of all, the sound of a crowd so gutted by his team’s performance that they couldn’t even bother to boo. A winded, humiliated crowd. That was Ilya’s favorite sound. ― Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry “Um, and this is….Ilya. Rozanov. You probably know that.” What were they, exactly? It occurred to Shane that he and […]

“I don’t want to talk about time travel…”

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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“…because if we start talking about it then we’re going to be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws.” Thankfully, Emily St. John Mandel also makes the choice to not get bogged down in discussing time travel. Hell, the last Avengers movie probably does more dissection of the implications and intricacies of time travel than Sea of Tranquility, and I mean that as a compliment. I think Sea of Tranquility is a great example of a “soft science fiction” story in the […]

Emily St John Mandel is So Good.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel

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I am so glad I read this.  I’m always so glad I read ESTM’s books. Told in a series of vignettes, connected only by the recurring appearance of Gaspery, Sea of Tranquility spans hundred of years and doesn’t really have much of a plot beyond “What is life?  And does it matter?”  There’s not a lot there, beyond a faith that meeting and spending time with these characters will have a narrative and emotional payoff.  And yet, it does.  And yet, utterly compelling from end […]



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