Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I wrote a long review about two books and it’s longer than the books probably…

Sun, Moon, and Star: A Folktale from Korea. by Nancy So Miller

Beatrix and Her Friends by Anne Lambelet

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Folktales have always been a go-to read for me. I enjoy learning about other cultures and seeing how they have been interpreted. Plus, I enjoy comparing them with other cultures’ stories. One true folktale (it even says so in the title) is  Sun, Moon, and Star: A Folktale from Korea. The other, while not a pure folktale, I consider her stories to be folktale adjacent. It is a biography of Beatrix Potter, aptly named, Beatrix and Friends. Nancy So Miller took an established story of […]

A fantastic story of consequences and regrets

Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

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I received an advance copy from the publisher via Netgalley for review purposes; this in no way influences my review. Blood for the Undying Throne releases Oct 28, 2025; Blood of the Old Kings is available now. There may be spoilers for book 1 of the Bleeding Empire. One day at the library, I happened across Blood of the Old Kings on the new releases shelf, and because I’m doing a reading challenge for 2025 where one of the prompts is a translated SFF, I […]

The shade of a tree is sweeter shared

The Shade Tree by Suzy Lee

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CBR15Passport country   If you like folktales and legends, The Shade Tree is a great one to add to your collection. It takes a classic Korean folktale and updates it, while keeping a classic feeling. Suzy Lee’s story shows how a traveler tricks a rich man into selling him something that in the end, probably cannot be owned, but due to perception and the entitlement, the rich man thinks if he wants, he can own. And though he might have wealth he is lacking in […]

the many forms of love that shape life and fate

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

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Alright, so Iron Widow was not my jam (to my disappointment). I was really hoping that the next of my library audiobook holds would turn things around, and Axie Oh’s The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea came to me next. And oh, this one is my jam. Or at any rate, it hits a lot of sweet spots for me and I enjoyed it tremendously. (Not burying the lede this time, either, obviously.) The novel is not exactly a retelling of the Korean folktale “Shim Cheong” (apparently […]

“The fact that they have families and parents . . . is why they shouldn’t do these things, not why we should forgive them.” #CBRBINGO – Uncannon

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

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I have had terrible luck with lit-fic so far this year, so it’s nice that my streak is finally broken. This book was great. Depressing, but great. And I never would have picked it up on my own except that it qualified nicely for the novel in translation category (non-European) for the Read Harder Challenge, and it was short! And very well regarded. So thanks, Read Harder! Doing your job. Kim Jiyoung is a young mother living in Korea. She quit her job in marketing […]

The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans

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Based on a true story, Rice from Heaven: The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans gives a softer view of a very true hardship the people of North Korea face. When a village in South Korea decides to secretly send balloons filled with rice to feed the hungry people of North Korea, they are faced with many obstacles: the other villagers do not want to give aide to the enemy. The North Korean soldiers could see the balloons and shoot them down. They do not […]



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