Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Soft red petals using white sharp teeth

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab

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V.E. Schwab is one of those authors whose books are always intriguing but sometimes I don’t quite get that emotional connection from them and feel slightly at a distance. This novel was one of the ones where I think I was more intellectually engaged than emotionally, especially in the later half. I’m sure I read the summary/synopsis when I ordered the book but all I really remembered/knew by the time I started this one was sapphic and vampires. The novel alternates view points and time […]

Trigger happy

Vengeful: A Novel (Villains Book 2) by V.E. Schwab

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Cbr16bingo Part 2 Part 2 of VE Schwab’s Villains series, Vengeful, picks up 5 years after the events of book 1, Vicious. As with the previous volume, the story line cuts back and forth from present day to the past, slowly teasing out the events that have formed the main characters and that are leading up to what promises to be an explosive showdown between factions of EOs (ExtraOrdinaries, i.e. those with super powers) and civilian authority, most notably the new and secret task force […]

This one goes to a pretty dark place

Vicious: A Novel (Villains Book 1) by V.E. Schwab

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Cbr16bingo Part 1 This is the second novel I’ve read recently that deals with heroes and villains, and with the notion that “heroes” are actually pretty terrible people. Hench was a great read, and I was immediately sucked in to Vicious, too. In both stories, the “bad guys” actually are the people who seem to have a better sense of what is the right thing to do, but they still aren’t completely good people. This is a pretty dark novel and absolutely not for the […]

“In the clear and steady gleam of electric lights, superstition turns to foolishness; in the crucible of the combustion engine, false beliefs are burned away.” (Bingos #9 & 10)

Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite by Zoraida Cordova & Natalie Parker (editors)

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My Halloween read this year is this collection of new vampire tales edited by the team of Zoraida Cordova and Natalie Parker. I enjoy vampire stores because they offer so many different views onto the human condition, if you go looking for them. In Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite Cordova and Parker, along with the assembled authors, take the time to dig in and explore these angles – with postscripts by Cordova and Parker after each story. Let’s handle individual stories in […]

Thank goodness I didn’t read this debut first

The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab

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Bingo review 9: Debut My first encounter with V.E. Schwab was Vicious, her break-out best-seller hit. This led me to A Darker Shade of Magic, and the rest as they say was history. I was intrigued when she announced that her original debut novel The Near Witch was going to be re-published. I didn’t especially enjoy this one; the basic plot and characters are too predictable and it’s written in first person present tense, one of my least favorites. The plot and characters are obviously […]

Victor readjusted the shovels on his shoulder and stepped gingerly over an old, half-sunken grave.

Vicious by VE Schwab

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This is the first book of the Villains series by VE Schwab. I haven’t read the second one yet, and I have only read one of the Magic series, but I liked it. This book I also liked, but I am not entirely sold on it in ways that I thought the opening book of the Magic series was incredibly rich and detailed. So the premise here is basically a few medical students figure out that maybe superheroes/supervillains are real or could be real, and […]



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