Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“A romance is a belief in the impossible: that anything ends happily.”

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

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This was really good but I can’t give it a full five stars for one reason. More on that reason below. But first! I enjoyed this so much! I said this in a status update while reading, but it was such a relief to have a YA book tackle what this book is trying to tackle* and have it SUCCEED instead of falling down on its face. Ava Reid, like her or not, is really talented. There are of course going to be people that […]

“Beside her, Death set down his tea. ‘How do you feel about this woman? I could infect her with a light plague, perhaps. Or we could give her the pox? Blemished skin may do her vanity some good.'”

Belladonna (Belladonna, #1) by Adalyn Grace

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The romance was the least interesting part of this gothic, young adult fantasy. I was here for Signa and her affliction, and the atmospheric, ghost- and poison-infused setting. The fact that the central plot was a murder mystery certainly didn’t hurt. Signa is an orphan of unusual circumstances. When she was a baby, her mother and everyone in their house was poisoned at a party. She was the only survivor, despite being poisoned herself. In fact, Signa cannot die. She can be poisoned, injured, or […]

“To die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier”

The Gilded Ones (2021) by Namina Forna

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CBR Bingo 15 square Africa, because author Namina Forna was born and raised in Sierra Leone, on the west coast, a former British colony. It was first called Serra Lyoa, or Lion Mountain, because it was first “discovered” by Pedro de Sintra, a Portuguese explorer in the 15th century, who feared lions in the rolling of thunder in the hills around the harbour. I know this because I learned it in school, because when I was little I went to school in said hills, and […]

“In a conquered land, the only way to win was to survive.”

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night (Song of the Last Kingdom, #1) by Amélie Wen Zhao

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3 Book 13/30 This one surprised me! There has really been a lot of authors the past several years who have rescued YA fantasy for me, and Amélie Wen Zhao is now one of them. This book was very well-written, had intense and interesting worldbuilding, a strong main arc and a strong conflict to guide it, and the characters often made decisions that while sometimes frustrating on a personal level for me, always made the story more interesting. There […]

I liked this upon finishing it five months ago . . .

The Luminaries (The Luminaries, #1) by Susan Dennard

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. . . but I have since had almost everything about it fall out of my head. Had I written this review right after finishing like a good little reviewer, it would have been four stars, but I think the fact that it hasn’t stuck with me and I had to look up so much in order to even write this paltry review is definitely working against the book, and I’ve bumped it down to 3.5 stars, rounded down, as a result. Also I remembered […]

Camp Half-Blood 4 Life (Percy Jackson and the Olympians series review)

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

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I read this series when it was originally published and didn’t think about it much after I’d finished. I liked it, yes, but it wasn’t a new obsession for me and I never really planned on revisiting Percy’s world. Then I watched the teaser for the Disney+ show coming out next year and checked them out from the library and that’s how I spent my last two weeks. The series follows Percy Jackson, who finds out he’s a demigod, the son of Poseidon and a […]



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