Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Stone and Ash and Magic

The Obelisk Gate by NK Jemisin

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The more of Jemisin’s works I read, the more I fall in love with her craft. The Obelisk Gate is book two in her Broken Earth Trilogy, and even though I’m normally not the biggest fan of any middle book in a trilogy, I enjoyed this book even more than her first one. We pick up the story almost exactly where we left off in book one, and follow Essun as she pivots her focus from finding her daughter, Nassun, to assisting the orogenes of Castrima […]

A spectacular debut YA novel

Color Me In by Natasha Diaz

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I really loved Color Me In, it was outstanding. It is hard for me to believe this is Natasha Diaz’s debut novel. Color Me In tells the story of Nevaeh Levitz, a black Jewish girl whose parents separate and who moves in with her mother’s family in Harlem. I found this book from a tweet of a friend who retweeted the author. While I can’t comment on perspective of someone who is coming to terms with their racial identity, I can certainly comment from the […]

cbr12bingo – Repeat (and TWO Bingos!)

Luster by Raven Leilani

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Raven Leilani has exploded into the scene like the chestburster in Alien. Fully-formed, unapologetic, covered in blood, and completely in control while annihilating the guts of a mediocre man. Luster has been racking up well-deserved accolades, and I truly cannot wait to see what she does next- although I am relieved that this is her debut, and there isn’t a back catalog waiting to destroy me hiding just out of view. Not only is her work fantastic, but it also allows me to knock two “bingos” (Money, […]

“I forgive no one, and no one forgives me.”

Human Acts by Han Kang

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The Gwangju Uprising was a popular revolt calling for the democratization of South Korea in 1980. Students who protested against the martial law government were imprisoned, tortured, raped, or executed by government troops which led to citizens taking up arms against them. The murder of fifteen-year-old Dong-Ho by soldiers is the event that loosely connects the individual stories in this book that take place during the uprising itself and then over the following 30 years. This is a book that can make a reader lose […]

Come for the gorgeous book. Stay for the page-turning mystery.

I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick

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Reader, this book is, without a doubt, the single most beautiful hardcover I have ever seen. Just look at those blue pages! Absolutely stunning. I admittedly bought this book simply because it was so pretty…and then, Cannonball friend Karen McManus tweeted about what a great mystery it was, and into the vacation reading pile it went! This story starts near the end: a young woman named Anna turns herself in to police in a small Hamptons summer town, confessing to the murder of a missing […]

Sadly, a rather disappointing follow-up to two very good books

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

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#CBR12 Bingo: UnCannon (YA fantasy, written by a woman, about dark-skinned heroine, with several queer characters as supporting cast) Official book description: Eight years have passed since the young Princess Bitterblue, and her country were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the queen of Monsea, and her land is at peace.   But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisers, who have run the country on her behalf since Leck’s death, believe in a forward-thinking […]



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