Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Color me surprised: Someone on the internet thinks this book is racist

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

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First things first: I want to give a shout out to the Little Free Libraries of the world. A few weeks ago I picked this up from one in my neighborhood and it was my first time borrowing anything from one of those tiny bibliotecas. I’d heard of this novel but might not have been prompted to borrow it if I hadn’t seen it through the friendly little window. I’m inspired to pay it forward by adding something from my “already read” stack when I […]

A Satisfying Follow up

On The Come Up by Angie Thomas

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  I adored Angie Thomas’s debut, The Hate U Give. I recommended it to nearly every person I encountered in the last year and have never been disappointed by their reactions. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Thomas’s second book was an option in my Book of the Month Club membership. On The Come Up follows Bri, a sixteen year-old girl living in the Garden Heights neighborhood that is familiar to readers of The Hate U Give. The action takes place about a year […]

No Sophomore Slump Here

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

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On the NYT book list for Young Adult/Hard Cover, Angie Thomas reigns as queen. Her debut novel The Hate U Give has been at or near the top of the list for 103 weeks. It is currently number two. The number one spot is held by Angie Thomas’ follow up, On the Come Up. Thomas takes us back to the Garden Heights neighborhood but we see it from a different perspective this time. Brianna Jackson, known as Bri, is a teenager who lives immersed in the […]

Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

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This won’t be a long review. I don’t have anything substantive to add to what’s already been written and said about Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to say anything at all. As a middle-aged, middle-class white guy from the very white Deep Midwest, I’m several degrees of separation from this book’s intended audience, but that’s exactly why it’s an important read for people like me. Starr lives in a rough neighborhood where everyone knows her because […]

I did not expect this.

Blended by Sharon Draper

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Last week, my boss gave me this book and asked me if I would prepare a presentation on it for some workshops we have coming up. It looked cute: pink and white stripes on the cover and a girl spilling her ice cream. Sounded fine to me! And the book was indeed fine. Blended tells the story of Isabella, a sixth grader with divorced parents. She struggles to adapt to the back-and-forth custody arrangement that her parents have, and doesn’t feel like she can call […]

Post-Cannonball roundup

The Nine Taylors by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

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I actually read more books this year than I have since I can remember. I just don’t have the energy to review them all for various reasons. Last year I did a round-up of all the books I didn’t properly review, and I’d like to do the same now (I’m only counting this review as 1 book read, because even though it’s lots of books, it’s not a full review for each and there’s no overarching theme like I usually do in my multi-book reviews). […]



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