Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Run, don’t walk, to read this trilogy!

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, 1) by N.K. Jemisin

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And a happy new Cannonball year unto you! It’s my first review of the new year, and as last year my full cannonball slipped through my fingertips I’m hopeful that this is the year…of redemption. But like, also, this is the year of realizing that it’s just a number and as long as I’m reading I’m a winner. Onto my first review! I had already heard of N.K. Jemisin from LeVar Burton Reads, the podcast wherein the ever delightful LeVar Burton reads short stories. He […]

The Best of the Trilogy

The Stone Sky by NK Jemisin

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  While the whole Broken Earth series was incredibly deserving of the Hugo award, the Stone Sky, in particular, was a feat of literary perfection (at least in my opinion). As I’ve said with both of Jemisin’s previous novels, her ability to successfully deploy second person POV continued to astound me in this last chapter of her epic, and while hints are given in book two of who this narrative voice is, it all comes roaring to the surface in book three. As with any trilogy, […]

Everything changes in a Season

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

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Sometimes the weight of expectation is enough to keep me from reading a book I truly want to read. Case in point: I’ve had NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season on my shelf for almost a year, even though I was sooo excited when I bought my copy. The timing was right, though, since I needed a win after a bit of a streak of so-so reads, and for the most part, this book delivered. The Fifth Season begins with a prologue that introduces the world […]

Everything I knew I always wanted

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I keep hearing things about N. K. Jemisin, but my reading list is so long. HOWEVER. Jemisin ticks so many boxes for CBR 10 Bingo – award winner, birthday, start of a series, etc that I made space. I was very surprised to find that my library had no Jemisin books in the collection, so requested a copy of The Fifth Season via interlibrary loan based on recommendations on the CBR FB page. Thank you, folks, for the excellent recommendation! This is the first book […]

It’s All About Timing

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Bingo Square: White Whale I attempted to read this last year because it had so many rave reviews and I also felt like it was something I should read to explore more diversity in sci-fi/fantasy.  I think I put it down a few times too often because I kept losing the thread, and combined with the portions in second person, I simply couldn’t get into it. As a result, it seemed like the perfect fit for the White Whale category. It still took me a […]

There’s more than one way to be human

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A year ago at this time, in the wake of our devastating presidential election, I reviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, two treatises on racism and oppression in America. As I read N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, it occurred to me that her novels present a perfect fictional account of the same topic. These Hugo-Award-winning stories take place in a world where racial difference leads to oppression, exploitation, and genocide. As a result of this […]



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