Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

No really they are a witch

Lola’s Super Club V02 My Substitute Teacher is a Witch by Christine Beigel

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Even if I had read book one of Lola’s Super Club (which I realized after starting this was book two with the subtitle of My Substitute Teacher is a Witch) I do not think I would have liked this book. While kids who like “kid gross humor” and fantasy drama/action/violence will enjoy, it will not be for everyone. I appreciate the attempt of Christine Beigel with their trying to make this book a “girl power superhero book” and using stereotypical “boy stuff” for the plot […]

Beauty & Cruelty

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

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After the herculean doorstop that was Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings, I needed a fast, fun, and gripping read. So I turned to Holly Black, whose Folk of the Air trilogy I gobbled up in about 72 hours over Thanksgiving break. The Darkest Part of the Forest did not disappoint, and I blew through it in a day. Written a few years before Folk of the Air, it was fun to see how Black was playing around with the themes and premises that she later expanded […]

Yup, he’s not a vampire. Or is he?

Fake Blood by Whitney Gardner

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There is this book, okay, graphic novel, called Fake Blood. Whitney Gardner is the author and illustrator of this creation. I had seen it over the years on a display here, a list there or on the shelf. But when I was bored one day and was wondering what the library had that I might be interested in, I found it listed (I was perusing their website). I chose five books (with a sixth as a backup in case something was not available) and came […]

A masterclass in the novella; body horror and racism collide.

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark

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We know that the people who join the Ku Klux Klan are monsters. Average people who act in monstrous, horrible ways. But what if some of the Klan members were actual monsters? Giant, hulking, dog-like beasts that want to consume and destroy Black people? Such is the premise of Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark. Maryse, a Black woman, hunts these monsters in Prohibition America with the help of her magical sword infused with the anger, pain, and despair of Black men and women of […]

Back in Ilona Andrews’ Atlanta, this time with a new protagonist

Blood Heir by Ilona Andrews

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Info to new readers – while this is the first book in a new series, and as such, should be perfectly accessible to readers completely unaware of Ilona Andrews’ previous books, it references A LOT of stuff that happened in the ten-book Kate Daniels series, as well as in Iron and Magic, a spin-off book of that series. I would highly recommend that you start there. Aurelia Ryder arrives back in Atlanta after an eight-year absence, trying to keep her presence mostly under the radar. The last time […]

BFL: Big Friendly Leviathan (Or not)

Doodleville V01 by Chad Sell

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Doodleville V01 by Chad Sell was a bit of a hard sell for me (okay got that out of my system). It is by the author of a book I felt was “Okay. Not OKAY!” (A small difference, but one nonetheless.) But I was in the mood for something that felt easy but knew would not be just fluffy and Doodleville seemed to fit. And the theme of dealing with the fears and emotions of one girl was not fluffy. But it was not “heavy” […]



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