Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Just Every Trigger Warning Imaginable

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

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I am too old to have watched Jeanette McCurdy on Nickelodeon, but I was vaguely aware of her before she started promoting this book. I also follow a lot of eating disorder recovery stuff, so I’d seen her podcast being suggested before this came out and was thus aware that the book was going to deal with her eating disorder a lot. Up front I will say that if you have an eating disorder and/or are in recovery from one, this book is super, super […]

“I’m finally in the sunshine:” A Good Look At Escaping an Abusive Mother

My Mother, Munchausen's and Me by Helen Naylor

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This is a very sad but ultimately triumphant memoir that deals with the impact of Munchausen’s on both the author’s mother, the author herself, and their family and friends more widely. Helen Naylor’s mother had Munchausen’s Syndrome (also called Factitious Disorder), and over the course of this memoir we see Helen slowly realize that her mother has been lying about her illnesses and abusing her. During Helen’s childhood, her mother says she has ME/CFS and spends most of her time resting and leaving Helen to […]

Angst!

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

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“It was funny, the Gray Man thought, how humorous she always appeared, how that smile was always just a moment away from her lips. You really didn’t see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn’t it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs. And here was the other trick: Maura was not faking her happiness. She was both very happy […]

Ooh boy. I wanted to love this so much, but it made me very angry.

When Women Were Dragons by Kelley Barnhill

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I think this is my first ever Cannonball book that I DID NOT FINISH.  I saw this book somewhere (I legit have no idea where), and it caught my eye because the main character is named Alex Green, and also duh – dragons.  My cousin who lives in Arizona who just left Pennsylvania after visiting our entire family is named Alex Green.  I was pumped when I read the plot too. Whoo boy.  I borrowed this audiobook from the library, and I was so excited […]

“You can bid your parents farewell without forgiving them. You don’t have to love them.”

A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad's an Alcoholic by Mariko Kikuchi

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The translation of autobiographical manga has been a wonderful side effect of the overall boom in popularity of manga/anime. The original manga boom in the early 2000s overlooked memoir, but as the market has matured and the comics boom has entered a new phase, memoir is finally being translated in the US, which is a real treat for me. A Life Turned Upside Down is a very sad and graphic memoir that explores the impact of having an alcoholic father, especially when everyone around the child […]

“When the thing that is scaring you is already Jesus, who are you supposed to pray to?”

Cruddy by Lynda Barry

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Lynda Barry is best known for her comics work, but I also really love her two illustrated novels (Cruddy and The Good Times Are Killing Me), which it seems to me are somewhat overlooked (or maybe I was too young when they came out to notice their cultural impact). All her work deals with outsider teens who are dealing with abusive parents and societal alienation with no one to help them. Cruddy is a very bleak, blackly comic novel. I like the journal-type format that it uses, as […]



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