Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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? […]

“Mors irrumat omnia. Death f*cks us all.”

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

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Apparently 2022 is the year I decided to become a Leigh Bardugo fangirl. So far I’ve read the Shadow and Bone trilogy as well as the Six of Crows duology from her Grishaverse, and now without even planning it I’ve read another Bardugo novel. I have literally no idea why or when I added this to my library  queue, other than that I first put it on hold before reading any of her other books, and I was probably half way through it before I […]

“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 […]

Ninth House

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

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Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Leigh Bardugo Ninth House is the first “adult” novel by Leigh Bardugo. Bardugo’s writing retains the flavor of the young adult novels she is most well-known for and other than the slightly older protagonist, I’m not sure what defines Ninth House as an “adult” novel. This is in no way a criticism – I very much enjoyed her other books and I enjoyed Ninth House. The shift seemed to be highlighted by the publisher but I’m guessing more as […]



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