Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Forget superheroes; supervillains is where it’s at

Vengeful by V. E. Schwab

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Vengeful is the followup to V. E. Schwab’s delightful Vicious, which I quick-reviewed at the end of 2018 and gave 4.5 stars to (warning, spoilers ahead for Vicious.) Vengeful continues the story of Victor Vale and Eli Ever, two ‘superheroes’ who veer into supervillainy. Schwab neatly gets around the whole hero/villain dichotomy by just calling all her super-powered characters ‘ExtraOrdinaries’. EO’s, as they’re abbreviated, are given their powers when they are resurrected (usually by medical means) from death, and their power relates to the circumstances that killed […]

I can’t really fault the book…

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

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It’d be pretty hypocritical of me to complain about a book being more style than substance when I literally purchased it because the cover art was purty. Who’s valuing style over substance now?! And I’ll give it credit, it does have style with a bolded S. Our magician hero wears a cloak that has hidden pockets that can change the exterior; his companion is a tough-as-nails badass with a glass eye, they are on the run from the sibling royalty of White London and their […]

A Darker Shade of Magic Re-read: CBR Bingo “I Love This”

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

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Due to a bathroom remodel, my husband and I slept in our front room, where all our bookcases are, and when we finally went back to our bedroom a stack of books was unearthed with A Darker Shade of Magic sitting on top.  This book was my introduction to author Victoria (V.E.) Schwab, also known for the Monsters of Verity duology and Vicious.  I devoured the story and highly praised it in a previous Cannonball.  My TBR list is intimidating, so even though I often find comfort in […]

My Weakness for Pretty Books

Shades of Magic: The Steel Prince by V.E Schwab, Andrea Olimpieri, Enrica Eren Angiolini

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I didn’t intend to buy this. I wasn’t a big fan of the main character in the main series whence this springs. He was just there, without much detail, mostly a stereotype. Until the end in which he does something that’s supposed to be self-less and brave, but ends up seeming pointless and meaningless. But there was a display of V.E. Schwab’s stuff, since she had a re-release out and the first volume of the Shades of Magic prequel/comic: The Steel Prince. It was pretty, […]

Cheating Death Never Ends Well

Vicious by VE Schwab

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 I have a cute model, so here you go. 🙂 I got this from Ale as part of the Cannonball read book exchange. I read it only in the daytime, because I am wimpy. Vicious tells the story of two college boys Victor and Eli who start experimenting with cheating death to become EOs, people with extraordinary abilities. There are a lot of interesting ideas in here about good and evil and souls. Eli gets his abilities and becomes a vigilante, killing other people who […]

Are you Extraordinary?

Vicious by V. E. Schwab

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I loved this book, I couldn’t put it down once I started reading it. Schwab is a great author (wrote the Shades of Magic series set in multiple parallel Londons). I believe this is one of her older books which recently was republished in the US. The idea is that some people are EOs – extraordinary – have a “superpower” that resulted from a near-death experience. The powers are varied – healing, controlling people, raising the dead, etc. College roommates Victor and Eli set out […]



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