Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Shanna was the first to go. And by ‘go’ I mean die. And by ‘die’ I mean get killed.”

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones

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I suppose it was inevitable that I wouldn’t perfectly gel with every single thing SGJ has written. This was good, but not really my thing. At first, I was really into it because I love a chatty, informal narrator (when done well). And in the style regard, I can’t fault this book at all. It’s solid. But the story itself just didn’t really work for me. The novella opens with our main character, Sawyer, telling us about the time a prank went very wrong for […]

“The first thing I hate is called a Russian doll. It holds a smaller version of itself inside it, and another inside that and so on. How awful. They are prisoners. I imagine them all screaming in the dark, unable to move or speak. The doll’s face is broad and blankly smiling. It looks so happy to be holding its children captive.”

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

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So after a night where this book sat in my subconscious probably doing things to me, I’m upping my rating to five stars. I can’t stop thinking about it, and the ending did what I want more horror endings to to do for me. There are quite a few people who experience a sort of literary catharsis with the presence of violence and gore, but I am not one of those people (and maybe they don’t even care about catharsis! who knows!). This book has […]

I guess I’m one of the few people who really liked this one!

Book of Night (Book of Night, #1) by Holly Black

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This has been getting pretty bad reviews, especially for how anticipated it was. Most of my friends have given it three stars or lower, or DNFed it. I was determined not to let that affect me, and I’m so glad I didn’t! This is a deceptively small book that gets off to a weird start, but as I kept going, I found myself so drawn in emotionally, and really invested in Charlie and her relationship especially with Vince, her mysterious boyfriend. I loved Vince right […]

This series is my jam. And now I want some actual jam.

Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, #2) by Holly Jackson

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Dudes, I read this so fast. Nobody says dudes anymore except for me. Sometimes I call my boss dude, just coz, and he’s like, Did you just call me dude? Anyhoodle, I read this book so fast, like super fast. There is something about this series that just gets to me. I love it. Even when it is not being the best objectively. I was so happy when I found out that this book was in large part going to be about consequences just like […]

This book has reached its expiration so I have taken it off my shelves.

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1) by Patrick Ness

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Not for me, I’m sure it was great. (Or was it???) I might have liked this if it was still 2009. It seriously felt like time-traveling back to when I thought I liked dystopias, and when they were everywhere. Also, I just don’t think this author is for me. I read another book from him a couple years ago and also didn’t care about it very much. This is a YA sci-fi/dystopia about a boy and his dog who live in a place where there […]

Probably the most creative werewolf book you’ll ever read.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

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Oh, dang, I thought I had written a review of this one, but going through all my 2022 books to Review Amnesty, I see I have in fact, not done so. Real quick, if you’re looking for a starter horror/starter Stephen Graham Jones, this one might actually be a great book to read. And this book isn’t even all that horrific. It’s only really classified as horror because werewolves and because Stephen Graham Jones, but it’s really a coming of age story about a young […]



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