Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Unique takes on age-old tales for a YA audience

At Midnight by Dahlia Adler

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Dahlia Adler has been pumping out YA anthologies based on familiar lore for a while. At MIDNIGHT, twists on popular fairy tales, is her most recent work. It’s also the first I’ve read, though I have her Poe remix on my shelf, and the Shakespeare remix is definitely going on my wishlist. It is a fantastic homage to favorite fairy tales. Almost all of them bring something new to each tale, but here are my favorites: Adler’s Rumpelstiltskin, which turns the gold-making goblin into a […]

“I care about you, okay? I like you, even though you’re prickly as hell and looking at me like you wish I would vaporize, and you think ketchup is a vegetable.”

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

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Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for the ARC! It hasn’t affected the content of my review. I was slightly skeptical of this book going in, as I always am with YA these days, but I couldn’t resist the premise. I’m really glad I gave in to my impulse on this one, because this book was really cute, and surprisingly emotionally harrowing at the same time. The premise here is that Atherton’s star quarterback died in a drunk driving accident over the […]

an author unafraid to let the chips fall where they must

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

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CWs, copied from the author: all the misogyny, all the homophobia, and a car accident death (offscreen, but discussed often) and also abortion/a miscarriage. I respect Dahlia Adler because while many authors have a tendency to write their romantic leads into a difficult situation (looking at you, innumerable romance novelists and also Linda Holmes), Adler has the guts to keep them there and not give them the “easy out.” In this case, the “star” quarterback of a middling-to-bad Texas football team dies in a car […]

first of two impulse reads

Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler

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CW: mild homophobia when characters come out, but it’s contextualized very quickly I think this came across my Kindle because it’s the already released novel of an author whose next novel was featured in Goodreads’ “Books We’re Looking Forward To” or “Celebrating Pride Month.” It’s definitely something I picked up and then read within a few days, which is not something that happens often given how stacked by TBR list is and how choreographed my hold/loan dances are with the various library cards I have […]

Cute Sapphic Cheerleader-Quarterback YA!

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

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This is a delight, which I knew it would be after loving Dahlia Adler’s Cool for the Summer last year. Amber has dreams of becoming cheer captain and being able to get a scholarship so she can go to college away from Atherton and be able to be out and openly date girls. But while she’s still in high school, she and her best friend Miguel are each other’s beard, especially after Miguel had been blackmailed, to make sure if the blackmailer tried to out […]



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