Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I feel like this should be a YA novel, but it’s not

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Gods of Jade and Shadow is a book where fairy tales and myths collide.  The book begins in a 1920’s version of “Cinderella,” but in Mexico.  Casiopea is a poor cousin of the richest family in their town, and she is given the role of maidservant while her mother is the cook.  Casiopea does as she’s told, but not necessarily as subserviently as her cousin Martín would wish.  One day while the family is away, she gets a chance to open up the forbidden chest […]

Hogwarts, but even MORE racist!

The Black Mage by Daniel Barnes, D.J. Kirkland

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I was intrigued when I saw this book come up on NetGalley, so I picked it up, but then forgot to read it, and then I was sad.  And I met the author and illustrator at the New York Comic Con, and they were really nice!  And then the library I work at got a copy, so I was the first one to check it out! Anyway…   On first glance, this looks like Harry Potter, but if Harry Potter was the only black kid.  […]

When the Internet called, this author answered!

Mrs. Perivale and the Blue Fire Crystal by Dash Hoffman

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Is this a great masterpiece of a novel?  No.  Is it the next great fantasy epic?  Also no.  Should you read it?  Yeah!  If not for the story itself, at least to support the way it came to be.  I’m going to put exactly what the text says:   @broodingYAhero said, “It’s amazing how many prophecies involve teens. You’d think they’d pick more emotionally stable people, with more free time. Like grandmas.” To which @Dinuriel replied, “…I would read the hell out of a series […]

I finally understand the struggle of non-English speakers who have to wait for books to be translated

Ghostsitter - A Crazy Inheritance by Tommy Krapweiss

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Okay, so this series is originally written in German. The first one was translated into English in an Audible Original (but not the other 7) and they made no attempt to Americanize it!  Hooray!  (They also never explicitly say they’re in Germany, which may have helped clear up some confusion in the beginning.)   Fourteen-year-old Tom is living his normal life with his adopted grandma when one day they get a notice that his great-uncle Heinrich has died, and Tom needs to attend the will […]

A delightfully modern 19th century novel

Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

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CBR12 BINGO: Green BINGO (diagonal): Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Violet Note: I read the version translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published in 2020.  When you open a book and find that it is dedicated to “the first worm to gnaw the cold flesh of my corpse,” you know it isn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill novel. I might not find that so unusual (I do enjoy my share of darkly humorous authors), though, if this novel hadn’t been originally published in 1881. […]

Let me play among the stars

Star Dust by Emma Barry/Genevieve Turner

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Official book description: Houston, 1962   Anne-Marie Smith wanted normal: a loving husband, two beautiful kids, and a well-kept house. But when she catches her husband cheating, she decides that normal isn’t worth it. Now in a new city with a new job, she’s trying to find her new normal—but she knows it doesn’t include the sexy playboy astronaut next door.   Commander Kit Campbell has a taste for fast: fast cars, fast planes, and even faster women. But no ride he’s ever taken will […]



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