Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not so pretty on the inside

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

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Tally Youngblood is an Ugly, and will be until she turns 16. That’s the age when everyone gets an exciting surgical procedure, bringing them all up to the desired Pretty standard, before going off to live in New Pretty Town and partying the rest of their lives away. With her best friend Peris already made Pretty and off partying without her, Tally is left to her own devices playing tricks on fellow Uglies and sneaking into places she shouldn’t be, until she makes a new […]

Powered Teenagers That Mess Up, Like Teenagers

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Zeroes is a co-authored book that starts what will probably be a trilogy. I didn’t pay attention and didn’t realize that the book had three authors until I finished it and there were three author bios at the end of my kindle edition, and looking back I can kind of see the seams. That being said, the book is so very much in Westerfeld’s wheelhouse; so much so that the book constantly reminded me of his earlier Midnighters series. The book is about a group […]

Indescribably mediocre YA steampunk.

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I don’t know what happened here. How a book about an alternate history steampunk WWI where one side has Clankers, and the other genetically engineered flying beasts that double as airships could be so exceptionally uninteresting and generic, I really don’t know. Also one of the MC’s is the son of the murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And the other is a girl who dresses as a boy! Also, also it was narrated by Alan Cumming! And yet, my mind wandered constantly while listening, and I […]

Jellies aside, I’m not a huge fan of The Zeppo. But I really liked this Patrick Ness book.

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Strange that I read these two books back-to-back. I didn’t intend to. I borrowed The Rest of Us Just Live Here from a friend, and picked up Geektastic at the library on a whim — the covers looked so similar, I just couldn’t resist. I’m glad I read Geektastic first, because I was so disappointed in it, that Patrick Ness couldn’t help but make me feel better. Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd should be amazing. Its a collection of short stories from authors I […]

Darcy & Lizzie – Not a Pride & Prejudice Fanfic

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I wasn’t expecting such a clever, enjoyable read. Westerfeld has his cake and eats it with two stories happening simultaneously in alternating chapters. Darcy Patel is a very young (just out of high school) writer who puts off going to college and moves to New York City after she lands a major book deal. Her début novel is about a girl named Lizzie who survives a terrorist attack by pretending to be dead and slipping into the afterworld. In the afterworld, Lizzie meets a mysterious […]

I’m just glad there weren’t any government mandated surgeries in this one.

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A few years ago (CBR4?) I read Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies and really, really didn’t care for it. But I kind of liked Scott Westerfeld, so I kept up with what he was working on. When I read ModernLove’s review of Afterworlds, I decided that this would be the book where I gave Westerfeld his second chance. The idea sounded so clever and the book was so pretty. I couldn’t say no. I’m mostly glad about that decision. Afterworld’s is something different. It’s actually two stories in one. Not two […]



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