Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An Unexpected Delight

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

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I am going the confess here that I have been dragging my feet a little bit when it came to writing this review for this book. Light From Uncommon Stars was actually the first of the Hugo Best Novel Nominees that I read when the voting packet was first made available, and if I didn’t scrunch up and focus on my resolve this afternoon, it would have been the last one I wrote about.  This is one of the most unusual speculative fiction books I […]

“My mother used to say that once you’ve made a choice, you have to act as though it’s been made forever. But I don’t know if I believe that’s true. Our lives aren’t decided by one choice, but by a series of small decisions that build up to pivotal moments. You can always make a different choice at the next juncture.”

The Ivory Key (The Ivory Key Duology, #1) by Akshaya Raman

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This is a book I definitely wouldn’t have picked up on my own, but it came as the second bonus book in my January Illumicrate box, so I thought why the heck not. And it was pretty good! Not great, but good. The book follows four estranged royal siblings in the made-up country of Ashoka who set off on a quest to find a magical item that will save their country. One of them is the ruler, one of them is in prison for killing […]

“You have to make the best of whatever story you were born into, and if your story happens to suck ass, well, maybe you can do some good before you go.”

A Mirror Mended (Fractured Fables, #2) by Alix E. Harrow

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So is this the last one of these then? It was a really good ending, if so. It’s been five years since we last saw Zinnia Gray, and she’s spent that time hopping from world to world, fixing fairytales, and helping princesses, sometimes realizing they don’t need help at all. But Zinnia is beginning to realize she’s running from her own life. She hasn’t spoken to Charm or Prim (who are now married) in six months. She’s avoidance denialing. That’s when she’s pulled through a […]

A Flash in the Pan

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

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CBR 14 Bingo: Font I do like that dripping red font, like it’s been chalked on. Also Lydia is a font of misery. Lydia is a vampire – has been all her life, since her mother turned her as an infant. Now she’s living on her own for the first time, and having trouble tracking down blood. Though I did not know there was a term for them, I have long been aware of the Sad, Strange, Miserable Women that populate the modern literary landscape. […]

Different Scandals in Different Places

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

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Bingo 11: Scandal A Strange and Stubborn Endurance opens with a scandal of sorts (or at least the inciting incident that gets the plot going does), and there’s a fear and use of gossip that gets brought up and/or used off and on throughout the story. There is a content warning at the beginning about the scandal which involves on-page sexual violence as well as self-harm and suicidal ideation; side note, I’m a little surprised that the one murder that does succeed before the final […]

Who-dunnit and who are these people?

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

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Bingo 10: Questions One main question of the Thara Celehar novellas is “who dunnit?’ as well as ‘why’, and that’s true of The Grief of Stones too, but also, there’s a bit of a twist about 2/3 of the way through which also adds “what will {x} do now?” Being a Witness for the Dead, someone who can see the final thoughts or images of someone who has died, it makes sense that Celehar would be involved in solving murders, as he is here, but […]



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