Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

down to the wire (as always) – BOOK CLUB TIME!

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

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Why did I wait so long to read these two? This isn’t just a question of Book Club procrastination; this is a “what was I thinking?” moment! I had heard good things about both, I was enraged as ever when they (and others) showed up on lists of challenged and banned books, and they were both available on scribd! Also- why did I treat these books like homework? “oh man, I have to read these before I can move on to other things”- at the […]

A complex, beautiful fantasy sequel

The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri

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[Review contains potential spoilers for Jasmine Throne, book 1 of The Burning Kingdoms trilogy] I finished Oleander Sword and now I don’t know what to do with myself. How dare it end there?! Where’s the next book?! I need to know what’s going to happen next!! Oleander Sword picks up a year after the events of Jasmine Throne. Bhumika and Priya are Elders of Ahiranya and trying to lead their country into a prosperous future, but are having to deal with the politics of the […]

An emotional story of family and love

This Way Out by Tufayel Ahmed

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This Way Out is beautiful, emotional, and such a great story of Amar figuring out how to reconcile being gay with being Muslim, being Bangladeshi while loving a white Englishman. This Way Out opens with Amar telling his family via WhatsApp that he’s engaged and his fiancée is a man, but then he hides from the responses from his siblings because he doesn’t actually feel ready for what their response will be. His family’s reaction is complicated and because he’s still coping with grief of […]

Fantastic second book!

The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

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[review contains references and spoilers for Bone Shard Daughter, book one of The Drowning Empire trilogy] After defeating her father, Lin hoped taking over as emperor would be a smooth transition, but no one knows who she is and don’t trust the Sukai family after the terrors of tithing festivals and constructs. But with Jovis, who has become a folk hero, at her side she decides to travel across the empire to announce the ending of tithings, return everyone’s bone shards, and try to get […]

“Funny who gets to call themselves a hero, too.”

The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach

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I don’t even know how to begin describing this book. It’s like mashing a noir detective novel with a queer pirate fantasy and adding in a dash of horror. It’s weird and sort of wonderful and while parts didn’t work for me, the ones that did worked really, really well. While this is the first in a series, enough is resolved to give it a very satisfactory ending. Yat lived on the streets of Hainak after the death of her father, and joined the police […]

The Witch Can’t Love

Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley

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Tamsin is a powerful witch with a terrible condition: she can’t love. The ability was taken from her by the Coven as punishment after she drastically misused her powers in her youth. And so, in exile in a rural town, she does spells for the townspeople in exchange for the love that they hold, which she always uses up too quickly. Wren has spent her entire life caring for her ill father, so much so that she can do nothing else. She holds a secret […]



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