Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Through the Desert

Frontera by Julio Anta, Jacoby Salcedo

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CBR 15 Bingo: Guide – Guillermo has spent his afterlife guiding migrants from Mexico safely across the Sonoran Desert. Mateo is desperate to return to his life in Arizona after he and his family are deported back to Mexico, but that desperation makes him reckless. Lost in the desert, he must rely on someone he’s not even sure exists if he’s going to make it to safety. This is a graphic novel about Mateo, a teenage boy who is trying to cross the border into […]

Cinderella is Dead (RIP)

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

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Cinderella gets a Handmaid’s Tale twist for a YA Audience in Bayron’s book, with a queer protagonist too! It has been 200 years since Cinderella got her “Happily Ever After” in the kingdom of Lille.  Her story is now essentially the kingdom’s Bible, but very few people in Lille get to share in a happily ever after of their own. The kingdom is ruled by a cruel king, whose rulebook is a patriarchal nightmare. Curfews for female residents and no freedoms of which to speak; […]

It’s magic, you know, never believe it’s not so!

Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens

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Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens was recommended to me by a YA librarian friend. ( I read this as a passport book – recommended by a friend.) The story is told in alternating chapters by two magician’s apprentices: Rook and Sun. Rook, who was raised by his magician grandmother, is deemed unmagical. After her death, he is sentenced by the Magical Consortium to move away from his home and live in the city without magic. He is a genius (he keeps telling us that) […]

Not on the bandwagon for this series

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

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Throne of Glass sounded promising and it’s been on my list for a while. I finally picked it up; it starts off well, but then it seems to forget about the actual plot and focuses on the romantic possibilities of the incredibly obvious possible triangle between Celaena, Chaol, and Dorian, and the courtly scheming, mostly by two totally underdeveloped characters who might actually rather deserve each other. There is some supernatural evil looming in the background the whole time, but that too is pretty predictable […]

I can’t think of a reason not to give this five stars.

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

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Just FYI, I do not want to write this review. I’m feeling real cranky but I need to catch up on reviews, and it just so happens that I have to write a review for this book that was just a perfect little YA romance that I don’t have much to say about (this may change as I type), so I’m just basically starting this review by stream-of-conscious word vomiting to try to get the thoughts flowing because I read this back in fEbRuArY. Oh, […]

I saw it coming but that’s not totally a bad thing

A Venom Dark and Sweet by Judy I Lin

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I was right. The main threat introduced in A Magic Steeped in Poison that is more directly addressed and defined in A Venom Dark and Sweet was indeed of the ancient evil thing wants to resurrect and take over and destroy the known world. A Venom Dark and Sweet does manage to give heroine Ning more personality though in spite of maintaining her first person voice alternating with a third person representation of Kang’s perspective on things. They’re sort on the same side but also […]



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