Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I don’t understand how a book can end without an ending

All of Us Villians by Amanda Foody, Christine Lynn Herman

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BINGO – Dough (because one of the authors last name is Foody and the characters deal with classism throughout the book) Let’s just get this out of the way. This book was not for me. Every 20 years, the Blood Veil falls and 7 teenagers fight to the death in a tournament to determine which family will control High Magick in Ilvernath. Common magick is, well, common enough for small fixes in everyday life, but high magick is where the real power is. For centuries, […]

A Librarian Hero Story Begins!

A Winter’s Promise: The Mirror Visitor Book 1 by Christelle Dabos

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Cbr14bingo Cold A Winter’s Promise is the first book in a YA quartet by French author Christelle Dabos. It’s 490 pages long, and I tore through it within a few days. Book #2 is already queued up and I’m hoping that the storytelling continues to keep me hooked in. Dabos has created a steampunk world that has been divided not just politically and culturally, but also physically due to a “rupture.” Long in the past, a formerly unified planet broke up into different planets or […]

“She wore a dress Ronan thought looked like a lampshade. Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one. Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps.” #CBRBINGO – Holiday

The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

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I’ve been holding off on reviewing this one for a couple of days because I wasn’t sure if I was going to round my 4.5 stars up to five or not. Turns out I’m not—for now. This series and its premise make me nervous. I know that most YA goes in for happy endings, but there’s always the occasional tragical one, and I’m nervous this is one of those. So, I’m sort of holding out to see how the last two books go. If it […]

“My mother used to say that once you’ve made a choice, you have to act as though it’s been made forever. But I don’t know if I believe that’s true. Our lives aren’t decided by one choice, but by a series of small decisions that build up to pivotal moments. You can always make a different choice at the next juncture.”

The Ivory Key (The Ivory Key Duology, #1) by Akshaya Raman

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This is a book I definitely wouldn’t have picked up on my own, but it came as the second bonus book in my January Illumicrate box, so I thought why the heck not. And it was pretty good! Not great, but good. The book follows four estranged royal siblings in the made-up country of Ashoka who set off on a quest to find a magical item that will save their country. One of them is the ruler, one of them is in prison for killing […]

I found this Persian-inspired fantasy intriguing.

This Woven Kingdom (This Woven Kingdom, #1) by Tahereh Mafi

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I always try to go into books with an open mind and wanting to like them; it’s not fun for me to read books I don’t like. But even so, I haven’t had great luck with YA fantasy in the past so I mostly stopped reading it. For some reason, as a genre it’s particularly vulnerable to publishing trends and the resulting books often end up feeling the same as all the other books to me, even when having seemingly original sounding premises. Also, I’m […]

An intense and timely YA thriller.

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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I’ve decided to keep this rounded down to four stars for now, because while the rest of the book was absolutely great, the climax was a little underwhelming for me, and that’s the moment you’re waiting for in a thriller. The epilogue ended the book on a great note, but this wasn’t a perfect read. It was very, very good, though, and I will definitely be checking out everything from this author going forward. If this is the book she can write at 21 years […]



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