Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“A good man is made through a lifetime of work. Great men are made by their monsters.”

The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold

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I’ll admit, while I’d seen Lisa Bee’s review of this earlier this year, the book didn’t really land on my radar until I watched Black Sails over the summer and it was mentioned that Luke Arnold who plays John Silver had written this as well as a sequel that came out this year, and that he did the audio version himself. I was suitably lured in by this info and many thanks to crystalclear for getting me the audio version. The book tells the story […]

The Magic is Gone. Now What?

The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold

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Perhaps it’s unfair that I’m reviewing The Last Smile of Sunder City only days after finishing Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. A Hugo award winning series is always going to be an unreachable pinnacle, especially by a debut author, and I’m probably doing an unrealistic comparison to expect Sunder City to feed the depth of my expectations after spending three books in Jemisin’s incredible craft. But I did expect more from Sunder City. This isn’t to say Arnold is a bad writer; he’s not. He’s a very […]

Library Romances are Freaking Awesome

Stacked by Aviva Blakeman

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There’s a special joy when your friends write and publish their first book. Last year when Aviva published Stacked and its sequel Say My Name I scooped them up and then in typical me form saved them for when I needed a boost. I should have read this one sooner, if only to join the chorus of positive reviews, but either way I’m glad to have read it now because it was just what I was looking for. (As a note, I’m thanked in the […]

Not too bad for a first novel!

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

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To all of those naysayers who say that fanfiction is not legitimate, I present Exhibit A, The Other Bennet Sister, along with all of the other Pride and Prejudice “variations” or alternate stories.  This is what fanfiction is, taking something and putting your own spin on it.  The only difference is that the copyright has passed on P&P, so people can publish their stories, whereas you can’t really do that yet with Harry Potter or The Avengers or whatever.  (Although if you talk to the […]

“People can be unpredictable in their cruelty.”

Real Life: A Novel by Brandon Taylor

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Cbr12bingo Debut BINGO diagonal, Money to Music Brandon Taylor’s debut novel Real Life has been nominated for a Booker Prize. Warning: contains scenes of violence, rape, abuse Real Life is the excellent debut novel from Brandon Taylor, nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize. Taylor shows the effect of memory, the past and racism on one man’s life. The setting is a mid-western university at the end of summer, and the protagonist Wallace is a graduate student who is gay and Black. The action takes place over […]

“Name one hero who was happy” (CBR12Bingo2: Debut)

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I debated being cutesy about it and calling this my “orange” square since it won the Orange Prize, or a tongue in cheek “friendship” square, but figured I’d be more straightforward and go with the “debut” space. What a debut it was, too. I read Circe and enjoyed it quite a bit, but found it a bit detached. Undeniably great, but it just didn’t hook me like I had expected given the rave reviews here and elsewhere. This book? Blew me away. I loved Greek […]



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