Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You put dinosaurs and people together, you always get screaming.” (Bingo)

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

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CBR14 Bingo: Time (the whole book is about time travel to different points in Earth’s history) Dr. Madeleine “Max” Maxwell is recruited by the seemingly rather mundane St. Mary’s Institute of History, only to discover that they are actually a secret organisation that time travels to various points in history, for research purposes. Obviously, you can’t just throw anyone into a time machine and have at it, so there’s a lot of training. Then there’s the fact that time travel is rather dangerous, and she […]

“I was the kid with the shackle clamped around his wrist:” King’s Latest Doorstopper

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

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I’ve read almost all of the King oeuvre so was excited to see this at 30% off at Target. He’s known as a master storyteller for a reason, and I sped through this in a few days. Over the last few years he’s been mainly playing around with crime novels and thrillers, so this pastiche/homage to classic fairy tales and America’s foundational genre writers like Burroughs, Lovecraft, and Baum was an interesting change of pace. He’s only really written one other fantasy-type novel (Eyes of […]

Young love and demon hunting

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

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CBR14 Bingo: Cozy (this is a super-sweet YA comic. While there are some dark themes, the main vibe here is absolutely cozy.) Nova Huang (she/her) is an orphaned young witch, although she sees the ghosts of her parents during each major holiday, and sometimes just when they feel she might need advice or a good talking to. She lives with her two grandmothers, who sell books of both the mundane and magical varieties. Tam (they/them) on the other hand, seems to have been on their […]

Don’t mess with an angry gingerbread cookie!

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

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I really adored A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. This charming young adult fantasy novel was so much fun to read. A shout out to the YA librarian who mentioned how much she had loved this book. Mona is a 14 year old baker who has some limited magic capabilities. She can do things like make gingerbread cookies dance. One day, she finds a dead girl in the bakery and it turns out all magickers in her town are being targeted and […]

COVID and Traveling Gave Me Time to Read

Normal People by Sally Rooney

The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey

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I had started reading Normal People quite some time ago but put it down for long enough that when I was ready to start reading it again, I decided to just start over, and I think that helped my enjoy the book more. The re-read of part of the book helped me understand the characters in a way that I hadn’t the first time I started reading it. At this point, probably most people know the plot. Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron grew up in the […]

A five-star trilogy. #CBRBINGO – Series

City of Miracles (The Divine Cities, #3) by Robert Jackson Bennett

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“My definition of an adult is someone who lives their life aware they are sharing the world with others. My definition of an adult is someone who knows the world was here before they showed up and that it’ll be here well after they walk away from it. My definition of an adult, in other words, is someone who lives their life with a little fucking perspective.” – – – This series flies so far under the radar, and it deserves much more praise than […]



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