Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Great premise about a character who is freed from a cult but wants to go back; did not like where he went with it.

First, Become Ashes by K.M. Szpara

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I am going to continue reading this author’s books because I always find them compelling and interesting, but I think I might have to get the next one from the library instead of buying a pricey hardcover on the back of a tasty premise. This one is making me feel saucy. I was really looking forward to this book! The premise sounded amazing, and I love reading about cults, fictional or not. But the author took it in a direction that I thought was the […]

I have as many emotions inside me as there are genres in this book.

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1) by Tamsyn Muir

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Please note that although there are no real spoilers in this review, intuitive readers/reviewers might be spoiled anyway because of the way I’m going to say some things. You have been vaguely warned! “Read Gideon the Ninth!” they said. “You’ll love it!” they said. Well, fuck you, I did! I did love it! And I’m so mad and so sad also! It’s been a long time since I let a book get to me like this, and frankly, I blame everyone. I blame the author […]

“It might be that saving the world is idiotically simple. Maybe we just need to connect and care for one another.” #CBRBingo – Shelfie

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2) by Hank Green

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I give this beautiful eyesore of a book five stars. Well, 4.5 rounded up. I kind of don’t know what to say about this book! It was a lot! And, honestly, I liked the first book in this duology (3.5 stars worth), but it didn’t blow my socks off or anything. This one kind of did. I think there was a huge jump in quality here, but also a huge jump in scale. There was a focus on April in the first one that kept […]

Loved this book except for one pretty big thing.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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Aside from one pretty big complaint, this is one of the most fun books I’ve read this year. I love Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries (a good house party mystery always gets me going). I love when books mess with time. And I love sf elements mashed with other genres. I was worried the ending wouldn’t be able to bring it all together, but it did, with an added element of human emotion that I wasn’t quite expecting. My advice to you on this one is […]

“I was six years old. I was seven hundred and fifty. I was being hunted.”

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

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I have in the past frequently compared books to food because I find it helpful. I love both books and food in the way that only comes from consuming something, putting it inside yourself and making it a part of you, quite literally. There’s the immediate pleasure of the consumption itself, and then there’s the afterward, when the food or the ideas do things to you (good, bad or in between; small or large scale). I have previously compared books to cotton candy and burritos […]

“into every life a little poop must fall”

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

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There’s something about reading Stephen King that really fuels my creativity. And this was a good collection. The real star of these four novellas is the titular If It Bleeds, a direct sequel to The Outsider, but I think I might have actually liked it better than that book. We get some classic themes from Uncle Stevie here but he adds a modern spin to most of them that was interesting, even if some worked better than others for me. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone — 3.5 […]



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