Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Don’t hide your light under a bushel, darling.

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling

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(Title quote is from Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage) Aven Green has a pretty great life as a middle schooler in Kansas.  She plays on the soccer team, has a wonderful group of friends, is a creative writer, and plays the guitar. She also has no arms. She was born without them, though if anyone asks about it (and boy do they), she always has a wild tale to tell them about where they went and how. But her life is about to be upended: her […]

A Harsh View of the West, Unblemished by Romanticism

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I have been vaguely intending to read this novel for quite a while but I always ended up prioritizing other books, especially since I didn’t actually already have it in my TBR pile.  I’ve noticed a few Cannonballers mention the Bookriot Read Harder Challenge and since I’d already read a few books that fit into the various categories, I thought it might be fun to participate, and it also provided a push to finally pick up Lonesome Dove to meet the Western requirement. I was, […]

“The trip has been long and the cost has been high, but no great thing was ever attained easily. A long tale, like a tall Tower, must be built a stone at a time.”

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I’ve been sitting on this review for months, and have decided I’m going to take the easy way out and not say all the things I could about this last book in Sai King’s Dark Tower series. For the most part, I have loved reading this series over the past year. It’s had it’s ups (books two and five) and downs (books one and four), but on balance is one of the most imaginative, terrifying, satisfying things I’ve ever read. I will definitely be revisiting […]

In the Land of Memory the time is always Now.

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“I think telling stories is like pushing something. Pushing against uncreation itself, maybe. And one day while you were doing that, you felt something pushing back.” I can’t believe I only have one book left in this series! It feels like I’ve been reading it forever, but also no time at all. (I read The Gunslinger last fall, and The Drawing of Three in December, which is when I really fell into Sai King’s world.) What it really feels like being inside this story, I […]

Is a Western fantasy set in a Middle Eastern environment an Eastern?

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Amani Al-Hiza is poor orphan, raised by uncaring relatives in a small desert town where most inhabitants work in the local mine. She knows that if she doesn’t collect enough money to get out soon, she’ll end up as third wife to her unpleasant uncle, a fate she would rather die than accept. One night, she disguises herself as a boy and enters a shooting competition at the local watering hole, trying to win enough money to finally leave. She’s an excellent shot, and sure […]

“First comes smiles, then the lies. Last comes gunfire.”

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It’s sort of hard to be objective when a book sucks you in as hard as this one sucked me in. It’s not often anymore that I actually lose myself in a book—just straight up forget about my own existence, and become completely absorbed in a fictional one—but this one totally did that. It gave me the same feeling as The Drawing of Three, which is probably still my favorite in the series so far, though this one comes close. Roland and his ka-tet are […]



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