Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But it’s too late:” YA Nihilism and Queer Tragedy

As You Wish by Chelsea Sedoti

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This book was surface level readable, but morally it’s made me more and more mad the longer I think about it. It’s the kind of YA book where you read it in an intense sitting but are also irritated that the author isn’t trying to do more with the material. There is a lot jammed in here — a town where everyone gets a wish on their eighteenth birthday, football angst, romantic angst, dealing with your little sister being hit by a car and blaming […]

Historical (Fan) Fiction: *An Occasionally True Story

Bright We Burn by Kiersten White

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This book and this series goes well beyond my expectations that I held for it. I am not sure what I thought would happen and how I would feel but every other chapter was so compelling that I was lost to whatever they were feeling. The character work here especially just….*chef’s kiss*. I’ll get into it more below. Since this is the third novel in a series and I have not reviewed the other two this is just a quick and non-spoilery summary of these […]

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1) by Holly Black

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This one was fine! I liked the ending much better than I liked the first third or so. It was just, it was a lot of dramadrama, lots of characters, court politics, feelings, like a fairyland prime-time soap opera, and there’s a reason I don’t watch those anymore. But I did get pulled in as soon as Jude and Cardan started to interact more in a real way, because I am nothing if not a sucker for well-done enemies to lovers, and that part of […]

“One human female, slightly rumpled and creased from a long time in storage. Expert pilot, trash at basically everything else.”

Cytonic (Skyward, #3) by Brandon Sanderson

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How many left turns can one book series take? Not that I’m complaining. I wish book four was right now. And will I finally give five stars to a book in this series? I guess I will find out by the time I finish writing this review. (You are already aware if you are reading this right now. Writing is like time travel!) This is book three in Sanderson’s YA sci-fi/space opera series, Skyward. I liked the first book just fine, but book two, and […]

“Shakespeare knew too much.”

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

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I really had a good time with this one. I didn’t realize it was YA going in, but while it did lean into YA sensibilities at points, mostly it just felt like a kooky magical adventure story. It was very hard to put down, and I found myself constantly wondering what would happen next, which doesn’t really happen all that often to me anymore because I read so much (usually for me these days I vacillate between “I pretty much know what’s coming” because I’m […]

“His big, obnoxious Scorpio energy is invading your cozy Cancer safe space!”

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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I saved this for Halloween* and I’m so glad I did. It was so atmospheric and spooky and fun, with great worldbuilding and great characters. The only reason it’s not getting five stars is that I was straight up able to predict everything that happened in the plot, because the author telegraphed it all pretty hard. It didn’t really affect my enjoyment that much, because the fun here was the world and the characters, but I of all people should just not be able to […]



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