Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A break from the norm, but everything is too rushed

The Magicians: New Class by Lilah Sturges

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A group of hedge witches are being enrolled at Brakebills as third year students much to the dismay of the students who have been studying at Brakebills since year one. There’s obvious tension between the hedge witches and the Brakebills students, but they’re being forced to work and study together. Initially they’re told it’s to bridge the gap between the two magical worlds, but the students soon learn the truth. They will be learning battle magic, an outlawed practice, in order to be prepared for […]

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, whoops, I mean Muntjac.

The Magician King (The Magicians, #2) by Lev Grossman

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Now I’m remembering why this was only four stars. What was otherwise a clever play on Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader had the oomph taken out of its sails (heh) by a completely unnecessary SPOILERS rape scene at the end END SPOILERS. More on this in a bit. Quentin is still having his identity crisis all over the place in this one, but he’s much less obnoxious about it here than in the first book. The real centerpiece of this book is Julia, as we […]

A third re-read for a book whose series I never thought I would continue.

The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) by Lev Grossman

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I have once again re-read this book. (I blame my Narnia re-read, and also I wanted to read it one last time before I started watching the TV show.) My past self would be devastated to learn I have gotten even more out of this read than I did the last. I still really dislike most of these characters, especially when we reach the middle section after they graduate from Brakebrills and become disaffected young adults. I never went through this stage of life and […]

Murder at the Magic School

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

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I’ve not had a lot of luck with things highly recommended and hyped by authors whose works I’ve enjoyed.  V.E. Schwab might be an exception. I found out about the impending publication of Magic For Liars from her social media, and picked it up as soon as it came out. The descriptions of the premise as something between Harry Potter and The Magicians is also reasonably accurate; another point for the book, since I frequently don’t quite agree with the blurbs either. The basic idea […]

Beam me up, Scotty; there’s no intelligent life here

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I can’t remember if Grossman summarized the book this way in the introduction (which is sadly the most entertaining part of the book) but this is trying really hard to be the gen x-ers Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but returning to the relatively few 170-some pages isn’t something I have any desire to do to go back and check. a) I understand why you’d daydream this particular existence away, but b) the daydreams aren’t fleshed out and are impossible to follow as a result, […]

I did such a 180 on this series, you guys. I can’t even believe it.

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Sometimes you read a book and you go temporarily insane. The first time I read this book, I’m pretty sure this happened to me. At the very least, I experienced some sort of existential crisis while trying to sort out my feelings for it. I definitely remember being so upset and flamboozled that I started crying while writing my review over on Goodreads. I still think this book could have maybe been executed a little bit differently to let the readers know that Grossman was […]



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