Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I took a step toward her. ‘It is my right to reside in my own mind. It is my right,’ I said.” (CBR11Bingo)

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

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Her Body and Other Parties is all about expectations – both the ones on the page for the characters Machado created and for the reader as they come to the much hyped but little described work. I knew going in that the book was pushing boundaries, igniting conversations (the husband stitch, for example), and refused to stick to one genre at any given time, let alone for the entire collection. Having completed the book I understand why reviewers have, one the whole, been relatively mute […]

“It would please him well enough to amount to no more in the end than a single great organ of detection, reaching into blankness for a clue.”

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

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Not what I was expecting! Actually, I’m not sure I was expecting anything? This little novella is Chabon’s homage to Sherlock Holmes, though his “old man” is never actually named in the story. It’s 1944, and our old man who may or may not definitely be a retired Sherlock Holmes, is living in Sussex, keeping his bees, and coming to terms with old age and a world that has moved on. This part of the story worked extremely well for me. It was so poignant […]

The fact that she had sheet-cake frosting smudged on the corner of her mouth did nothing to diminish her authority

Unsung Heroine by Sarah Kuhn

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I have been reading but not reviewing Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex series. I was very happy to get an ARC of Unsung Heroine from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. At some point I will review the three previous books – Heroine Complex, Heroine Worship, and Heroine’s Journey. I will say now that they are fun books, and you should definitely read them before picking up this novella. Unsung Heroine focuses on Lucy Valdez, the bodyguard with no superpowers, but awesome fighting skills, a killer fashion sense, […]

Are you feeling lucky?

Lucky Suit by Lauren Blakely

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Lucky Suit is a popcorn romance novella, so it’s light and cute and enjoyable.   Kristen is a scientist who researches renewable energy (I think) and is intellectual and likes stars and math and poker.  She has one of those awesome grandmas who wears skinny jeans in her seventies and fixes up old cars. And Grandma is trying to set up someone with Kristen, which has not turned out all that well so far.  So Kristen turns to online dating, which Grandma is not about. […]

“I like stories where women save themselves.”

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

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Gaiman smushes the stories of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty together in this gorgeously illustrated novella.  The setting of the book is sometime after Snow White is awakened from her coffin and at the 100 year mark after Sleeping Beauty’s curse set in. But the stakes are raised when the sleeping sickness that has fallen on the princess and her kingdom is spreading out further and further as the curse lingers.  Several of the dwarves bring this to their queen, and conveniently she is looking […]

Angry Space Jellyfish

Binti by nnedi Okorafor

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I hated the first thing I got from a list of must-read sci-fi/fantasy series; I was not optimistic about the second. Thankfully, this one turned out well. The only problem? Binti is actually a novella, and way too short. I somehow ended up with a copy of the first novella, not the series of three bound together. The premise reminds me in some ways of Black Panther. Binti is a Shuri-like math prodigy from an isolated culture who sticks largely to old ways of living […]



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