Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I wanted to be the monster that kills other monsters.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

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Untethered Sky tells a lot of story in 160 pages while also feeling unrushed. Ester tells us her story with occasional bits of foreshadowing to let us know that we are hearing about something that happened in the past. How distant the past, I couldn’t tell. While I was fully invested in Ester’s story, Lee maintains an emotional distance between the story and the reader. The story opens with the moment Ester meets Zahra. Zahra is a fledgling roc, an enormous bird of prey stolen […]

Wrestling with Theology in Short Fantasy Fiction

Pulling the Wings Off Angels by KJ Parker

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I started reading KJ Parker’s Prosper’s Demon as an ARC a few years back. I remember putting it down about halfway through the novella and being fully OK with not continuing it but not having strong feelings about it one way or another. The book has since earned raves. I regularly come across recommendations for it as a readalike for something I really like. I can’t shake that I didn’t like it. I just didn’t. I didn’t hate it. I wasn’t offended by it. I […]

Fake dating and heart-shaped cakes

Not Your Valentine by Jackie Lau

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This was an ARC from the author. My views are my own. Helen Tsang has sworn off love as a lost cause after her boyfriend dumped her last Valentine’s Day and someone filmed it, making her a very involuntary viral sensation. However, as Valentine’s Day is approaching once more, she feels like she is getting excessive sympathy and pity from friends, family, and even the staff of her regular bubble tea shop. She doesn’t really want to field any more questions and decides to ask […]

Gentle and Kind, Existential and Grounded: Monk and Robot

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot #1) by Becky Chambers

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot #2) by Becky Chambers

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First time on Cannonball Reads. First comment on Pajiba two days ago (after 10 years of lurking). First time in years that I’m bothering to review. Thanks for exiting and offering a platform for whatever T H I S is that I need for right now… Which aligns with my reviews for my first reads of 2023 that aren’t library/ work-related: Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot novellas, A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. These two novellas – not sure if we can call them […]

Gender Roles Are Bullshit

Down Among The Sticks And Bones by Seanan McGuire

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Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the Second Book in Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children Series and I loved it even more than the first. This novella gives us the backstory of Jack and Jill (formally named Jacqueline and Jillian), twin sisters who were raised to have very specific gender roles, whether they actually wanted them or not. Their parents, who always did everything perfectly, expected one girl and one boy. When they didn’t get their expected male child, they decided to make Jillian into […]

Two words: Sapphic. Necromancers.

Dangerous Flames by Stephanie Burgis

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With Mia and Leander fairly well settled in Hapthorn, it’s fallen to Carmilla, Countess Cardenza, to investigate the last loose threads from the previous novella. But first, she has to not kill anyone at their wedding, not even her annoying (-ly beautiful) old flame. That’s right, it’s a second-chance sapphic romance between two necromancers! Carmilla’s taken it upon herself to check each and every bit of bland, boring respectable wedding preparations to avoid any nasty surprises. Sure, Leander’s undead minions are doing a great job […]



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