Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Travis_J_Smith

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(Learn more about this Cannonballer: ravis_J_Smith's Quick Questions interview.)

Travis_J_Smith's Reviews:

Adaptations are a net good

The Handmaid's Tale by Renee Hault, Margaret Atwood

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I forget when, but I remember I tried to read Atwood’s original book and couldn’t get into it. Since then, I’ve watched an episode of the show and seen how it’s reflecting our day-to-day lives more and more, so I thought the graphic novel adaptation would be a perfect avenue for a second attempt. I was right; the story does work much better for me in this format. Then again, that comes as no surprise because I tend to prefer graphic novels; I’m absolute bunk […]

Dead on arrival

Death Note: Short Stories by Tsugumi Ohba

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Boy, I’m glad I was able to find this at the library and spared myself from feeling the need to buy the copy I found at Target. As a lover of Death Note, this felt like a no brainer. Everything to come out of Japan has been at least decent, including the live-action movies. It’s only been America that has managed to ruin Death Note, what with that live-action Netflix adaptation. Oh, and they’re coming back for seconds, trying it all over again as if […]

Ah, memories…

The Big Jump: The Tao of Travis Pastrana by Travis Pastrana, Alyssa Roenick

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This brought me back to the days of elementary school Scholastic book fairs. My parents never gave me much to shop with at those, but what few books I did manage to accumulate from them tended to be books like this. I remember an unofficial biography of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, some super-slim book on Tony Hawk, and something else about this man, Travis Pastrana. This was before the days when the internet was as readily available as it was back then, when we were […]

I think I’ll leave it to Wes Tank for now…

Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss

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                Fox in Socks is one Dr. Seuss book that I somehow had avoided until I saw Wes Tank somehow turn this notoriously tongue-twisting book into a multi-minute rap. His Dr. Seuss raps were what reinvigorated my love for the author himself. Hearing those words in a rhythmic context only served to underline how well-written they were and had me wanting to revisit the books themselves. Naturally, I had to try my hand at reading this book aloud. […]

The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you’re suddenly going to believe.

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

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Like badkittyuno, the book didn’t quite gel for me at first. I liked the bits of Caden’s normal life, but found myself drudging through the rest to get back to those. I could tell right away that something was off about Caden, as he was convinced some random kid he didn’t even know was going to kill him, and I assumed the other sequences would be revealed to be somehow tied to reality, that they were a glimpse into how his head actually works… but it didn’t […]

What a difference two years makes…

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

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How in the heck was this written a mere two years after Solitaire!? They legitimately feel as if they were written by different authors, or at least by Oseman at polar opposite points in here career. Maybe it’s largely the subject matter informing that statement, as we don’t have the absolutely insufferable main character or outlandish side-plot or all the stuff that should’ve come with a content warning. It does make for a lighter read overall, more in line with the rest of her work. […]



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