Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Lord save me from a sad sack narrator.

Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey

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The premise here is: What if your sibling went to magic school and you’re a muggle? And what if you’re a private detective hired to solve a murder at a magic school? Both of these are intriguing separately. Together, I could not resist this book. Unfortunately, I did not like it nearly as much as I wanted to. Parts of it were stellar, and parts of it absolutely did not work for me. Our narrator is Ivy Gamble, a struggling private detective whose twin sister […]

What are the readers on Goodreads smoking?

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

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CBR12 BINGO: Fresh Start BINGO: Red, Gateway, Fresh Start, Cannonballer Says, Money Storm Front reads like a novel created buy a guy who played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons as a teen and always dreamed about writing his own fantasy series. And if that’s true, more power to Jim Butcher for fulfilling his dream. I respect the effort and the ambition. Sadly, that doesn’t change the fact that the result is just not good. The premise of this series is appealing enough. Harry Dresden […]

Good mothers are a gift…

The Changeling by Victor Lavalle

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In my long standing tradition of judging a book by the cover, I grabbed this book based on both title AND cover. The premise sounded interesting: a dark fairy tale take on postpartum depression. In the end, I found a trippy book full of all kinds of weirdness that was more than the sum of its parts. The protagonist, Apollo, is the child of a Ugandan refugee and a New York parole officer. Raised by a single mother after his father disappears, Apollo becomes interested […]

London is drowning and I live by the river

Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London #7) by Peter Aaronovitch

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When pressed, I’ll tell people I don’t like fantasy. This claim is usually followed by a list of exceptions. I like Neil Gaiman. I like Harry Potter. I also like the Rivers of London-series by Ben Aaronovitch. The rest of the genre is, as they say, not my cup of tea. No offense to you fantasy lovers, but it just doesn’t do much for me. The suspension of disbelief required is, apparently, too big a leap. One of the reasons I do like these books, […]

And so I have now given Brandon Sanderson three stars.

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Well, I suppose it had to happen sometime. I’m rating a Brandon Sanderson book less than four stars. He’s written about five million of them, so statistically this was a very likely outcome, eventually. And now it has, and we can all move on with our lives. I really enjoyed the first two novellas in this series. The premise is great (a genius who has schizophrenia channels his illness into the creation of imaginary people who he calls aspects, all of whom are experts in […]

A story about a flea, and also about how magic and fantasy are taken away from us

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane is two things: it’s a fantasy story about a seven year old boy who encounters some terrible, unbelievable things, as well as some wonderful, unbelievable things. It’s also a neat little ode to childhood and commentary on growing up. The unnamed narrator returns to his childhood home, which isn’t even there any longer, to attend a funeral, and finds himself taking a diversionary trip to the farm at the end of the lane. He vaguely remembers there […]



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