Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Adults only Apply

Fraternity: Stories by Benjamin Nugent

by Leave a Comment

First and foremost, there are events in this book that could be triggers for some. Therefore, a big fat PLEASE NOTE I am giving you a “Trigger Warnings Ahead” right up front. Fraternity: Stories by Benjamin Nugent was a reader copy just sitting around. People picked it up, put it down. It moved from one place to another. I finally picked it up the day I forgot my book at my desk (I was in the lunchroom, three floors up, which sounds like a big […]

Being a teenager is hard enough without the threat of total annihilation looming on the horizon.

I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi

by 3 Comments

Jesse, Cate, and Adeem are all just trying to survive- even before they catch wind of an alien planet’s message to earth: you will all be destroyed in seven days. Our main trio holds a treasure trove of teen torments between them: absent parents, the desire to be loved, the inability to accept care, the need to be anywhere other than where they are. Everyone is attempting to find someone who does not necessarily want to be found, and I was worried that we’d being […]

Another five star review for this wonderful graphic memoir.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

by 3 Comments

Note: We reached back to CBR12 to feature this review of Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. This year there is a renewed push to restrict access to books that reference race, gender, and sexuality. Kobabe wrote and illustrated an op-ed in the Washington Post on the need for queer kids to have access to queer books. In addition, eir was a guest on the Washington Post podcast, Please Go On. I have a lot that I want to say about this memoir, but I can’t figure out how to […]

“When you’re a kid, it’s hard to tell the innocuous secrets from the ones that will kill you if you keep them.”

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

by Leave a Comment

Karen Russell was just 25 when this collection came out; a fact that is plastered all over the cover, festooned in blurbs throughout the opening pages, and the header on almost every piece of criticism that was launched at the same time as this collection. Her youth is/was impressive, and most certainly made me look back at my 25-year-old self with pity, but her youth is not the spark that sets this fire. She may have been young, but her ability to give voice to […]

“Whatever happens, believe that the journey is worth taking, and then you will reach its end.”

Seaward by Susan Cooper

by 1 Comment

Cally and Westerly are strangers from opposite ends of the world who are about to be brought together in a place they least expect. Both reeling from grief at losing their parents, they find themselves in a mysterious, magical, and malevolent land that has echoes of their own, but otherwise is beyond imagining. They each have their own shared directive: to find the sea, where their parents implied they could be found. In this land, they meet a majestic, beautiful, and terrifying woman named Tyrannis, […]

“When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.”

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

by Leave a Comment

3.5 stars Official book description: August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary – inside. But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don’t get stared at wherever they go. Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo