Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Let it be a story about stories and the power they have to sway mortal hearts.”

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

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Wow. This book absolutely knocked my socks off. Much as you’d expect from a book loosely based on 1001 Nights, it’s a story about stories, about the stories we tell about ourselves and how they can constrain us or free us. Loulie survived the attack that killed the rest of her tribe, and with the help of her jinn friend Qadir, has risen to become the Night Merchant, the mysterious seller of jinn relics. When the sultan summons her and commands her to go on a […]

We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

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The second book in the Six of Crows duology is the best book that I have read this year. Now, I REALLY want Bardugo to go back and rewrite the Shadow and Bone books. I want to care about those characters the way that I care about these crazy kids. The, ahem, bones are there in the Shadow and Bonebooks but the depth of the characters is not. I understand that Bardugo grew as a writer but the difference between the first trilogy and this duology is startling. The misfits from Six of […]

I will have you without armor…Or I will not have you at all.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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Okay. This cannot be the same person that wrote the Shadow and Bone trilogy. It just cannot be. While I did like those books, I didn’t love those books. I adore this one. Honestly, I decided to read this first book in the Six of Crows duology just to catch up before watching the Netflix show which apparently blends both series. I had read that these books were better but was flabbergasted by how much better. I don’t mean to harp on Bardugo here but where was this level of writing in the trilogy? […]

This series should have been two big books instead of four smaller ones.

City of Dragons (The Rain Wild Chronicles, #3) by Robin Hobb

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 7/30 This ended just as it was getting going! I understand that there were publishing issues, and logistical things to consider in terms of ballooning page length on this one, but if I were her publishers, I would have just let her turn in one gigantic book late than split the book in two, to its detriment, just so they could publish on time. This is not a full story, and it starts out slow in the […]

A (very strange but lovely) fantasy for book lovers.

Among Others by Jo Walton

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 3/30 “I didn’t ask to have my good leg replaced by a creaky rusty weathervane, but then I suppose nobody does. I would have made much greater sacrifices. I was prepared to die, and Mor *did* die. I should think of it as a war-wound, an old soldier’s scars. Frodo lost a finger, and all his own possibility of happiness. Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end. Because this is after the end, this […]

The Book of Cold Cases

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

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I think the only book of Simone St. James I have really enjoyed has been The Sun Down Motel, and even that fell apart for me towards the end. I think the supernatural aspects of this book just actually didn’t work in this one one. The main character, Shea, was too self righteous for me and I got really tired of her by the end of the book. “The Book of Cold Cases” follows receptionist, Shea Collins. Shea is just going through the motions of […]



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