Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Folktales and cycles through history

Songs for Ghosts by Clara Kumagai

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Songs for Ghosts fulfills the “culture” square on CBR17 Bingo. Songs for Ghosts is a beautiful, tragic story of the power of stories and love, as well as the way past choices can create cycles throughout time. I’m unfamiliar with it, but in the afterword the author talks about Songs for Ghosts being a retelling of Madama Butterfly opera by Puccini where Cio-Cio-San has more agency than just the reductive submissive wife trope. Adam is a seventeen year old whose boyfriend just broke up with […]

When your abandoned lighthouse is not so abandoned after all

The Ghost of Wreckers Cove by Angelica Del Campo, Christian Argiz and Liniers

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Cbr17bingo G (G is for Ghost) When I find a book from Papercutz I usually have an extreme I really like this or I really don’t. Now, granted The Ghost of Wreckers Cove by Angelica Del Campo, Christian Argiz and Liniers (illustrator) had a few bumps as I am an adult reader who has to remember sometimes you need to suspend your “reality need” for the sake of a good story.  I was debating if I wanted to read this graphic novel as it looked […]

Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus, elves, flying reindeer and lots of love

North for the Winter by Bobby Podesta

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Cbr17bingo N (N is for North and Nobody will believe what our main character does!) North for the Winter by Bobby Podesta is probably one of the best books I’ve read this year. I love the historical aspect (the birth of tracking Santa because of a misprint in an advertisement in 1955) and while maybe it was not the most original with the grief and family connection/friend interaction, the ending was worth that familiarity of grief and the healing process. It is fun and quirky. […]

Quoth the raven, “This book quotes me far too much”

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

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CBR Bingo: Purple If you’d asked me six months ago if another Hunger Games prequel was necessary, I’d have said no. I read the original trilogy around the time that they came out and fully enjoyed them but haven’t re-read them since. I did watch the movie of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and had mixed feelings (the earlier timeline was interesting, but I didn’t really care for Snow as a protagonist) so didn’t end up reading the novel. But enough people whose opinions I […]

To tell the truth, the whole truth

Muhammad Najem, War Reporter: How One Boy Put the Spotlight on Syria by Muhammad Najem

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cbr17bingo Diaspora (this could be culture, but he upheaval of the Syrian people unfortunately fits.) Sadly, this book, Muhammad Najem, War Reporter: How One Boy Put the Spotlight on Syria, is nonfiction. I say sadly as nobody, let alone children and teenagers should have to go through what he did. Muhammad Najem, Nora Neus and Julie Robine gathered their talents and told the story of Muhammad as he risked not only his life, but the lives of his family, friends and neighbors. He wanted to be […]

Okay… I am reading volume 2…

Grand Slam Romance Volume 1 by Ollie Hicks, Emma Oosterhous

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cbr17bingo PLAY  Grand Slam Romance Volume 1 by Ollie Hicks, Emma Oosterhous (Illustrator), and Wren Rios (Flatter) Where is this world of only lesbians and queer presenting people? While things are not “harping” on the queer elements, there is no question that the majority of the characters (there is one heteronormal male-presenting character) are queer. Gender also gets time up as they might want to be called a Femme Daddy, or He is a bada$$, but they are all putting the X in StriXe! Yet, […]



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