Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Are we not all things?

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

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CBR14 BINGO: Series (first in a duology and part of the Grishaverse series of books) I have probably already sufficiently raved about the Grishaverse books written after the initial triology, but here I go again. Nikolai was a favorite character from those books so I was excited to revisit him and spend more time with his wink-filled antics. If you haven’t read the Shadow and Bone trilogy or Six of Crows duology, stop right there. Go to the library and get cracking. From here it gets spoilery. King Nikolai is trying to create the […]

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? […]

“No Mourners, No Funerals”

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

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I picked up (and reviewed) the original Shadow and Bone trilogy after watching the Netflix series. At the time I read in various forums (including, I’m pretty sure, other Cannonball Read reviews) that the Grishaverse novels get even better in the spin-offs – and based off of these two books, I have to agree! While I enjoyed the Shadow and Bone trilogy well enough, I didn’t feel they brought anything particularly new or interesting to the fantasy genre, and overall I actually thought that the […]

Finally Done and Good Riddance

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

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The final twist was stupid, the villain defeat was stupid and anti-climactic, the temporary (mostly) bad things that were done to certain heroes I’ve seen elsewhere in more interesting ways/effects, so very little actually seems to happen, and a lot of the backstory isn’t even all that interesting, although it does explain a lot about certain characters. No one even gets to do anything interestingly heroic here; the personal/self-sacrificial stuff in the final confrontation isn’t even that sympathetic. The prologues and epilogues don’t even add […]

Meh in the Middle

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

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Siege and Storm is better than Shadow and Bone for one reason: Nikolai Lantsov and Sturmhond. There is a lot less of Alina and the Darkling, although both do appear, and that’s not a bad thing. That part of the story shouldn’t really be the focus anyways, given how much Alina keeps focusing on one objective, first learn how to Grisha, then get away from Darkling while trying to find the sea snake/ice dragon and then fire-bird (and that quest is barely even mentioned)/maybe become […]



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