Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About GentleRain

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Your jack of all trades eccentric. Knows a little about a lot and a lot about a little. Tends to mainly read non-fiction (history, true crime, old gossip, etc), SF/F, horror, graphic novels, "genre" books. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: GentleRain's Quick Questions interview.)

GentleRain's Reviews:

“I felt sad and a whole lot better at the same time:” Truly a Timeless Classic!

Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary

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I was really going wild at the bookstore over epistolary novels last week and picked up Dear Mr. Henshaw, a book I hadn’t read in a super long time (maybe 20 years?). Happy to say that it holds up and is just as wonderful as I remember! It’s always weird reading a book you read a lot as a kid and seeing it through the eyes of an adult. I was struck by how big the print is, which I didn’t remember at all, and it […]

I love epistolary novels but had a major issue with this one

The Jigsaw Jungle by Kristin Levine

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I am a sucker for an epistolary novel, and this one is told in a combination of notes, transcripts, drawings, and so on to give it a sense that it’s a scrapbook. The Jigsaw Jungle follows Claudia’s quest to figure out why her father has vanished. One evening he sends an email saying he will be home late and then never returns. Claudia’s mother then has to go on a work trip to Switzerland and Claudia ends up staying with her grandfather for two weeks while […]

Two works from the same author, two diametrically opposed opinions from me

Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova

Nightschool Collector's Edition Vol. 1 and 2 by Svetlana Chmakova

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Dramacon was one of those foundational comics for me and it’s been years since I read it, so I decided to get the 15th anniversary collector’s edition, as my original copies have long since vanished. Then I decided to get the two Nightschool collector’s editions since I’d never read them. Dramacon held up and I’ll be keeping it, but Nightschool didn’t connect with me and I found it to be the weaker of the works. I know this is in large part because Dramacon so perfectly captures the mid-2000s experience of being at […]

“Everywhere I looked, there was danger:” A Nuanced and Interesting Middle-Grade Novel

Turtle Boy by M. Evan Wolkenstein

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Turtle Boy was a random bookstore find for me, and I’m really glad I picked it up off the shelf. An interesting cover illustration will always get me, and the combination of bright yellow and a picture of the visual representation of my inner child intrigued me. Turtle Boy follows Will Levine, who is struggling with bullying, the death of his father, and having to do community service as part of the preparation for his bar mitzvah. In the opening chapters of the book, Will is […]

A Great Collection of Autobio Comics!

Little Tunny's Snail Diaries by Grace Gogarty

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I really love Grace Gogarty’s work and so was thrilled when I saw this collection of autobio comics available for preorder. I hopped right on that and then forgot about it until I got the shipping notice, which was another delightful surprise. I am fully on board with using book preorders as a little gift for myself in the future, it cheers up a rough day. Little Tunny’s Snail Diaries collects a variety of Gogarty’s autobio comics in a really nice edition. The format mimics […]

A Fun Romance/Mystery, Perfect for the Beach or the Airport

Hello, Summer by Mary Kay Andrews

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I am someone who is very sensitive to the formatting and trim size of a novel, so I think a lot of my enjoyment in this novel was partially related to how much I liked the mass market formatting they used. A couple of years ago a lot of publishing companies switched to this taller, skinnier format that doesn’t work well with my hands, but the edition I got at the airport of this book was a more squat square format that was perfect. And […]



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