Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

terrific writing about terrible things

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

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Trigger Warning: please read the tags before deciding to read this review and/or book. If you feel that you can read this book, then you must. If you feel that you cannot, I will pass no judgement. Perhaps you have heard of the drama surrounding this release. American Dirt was climbing the charts and dominating the controversy  conversation when My Dark Vanessa tip-toed in and threw a hat into the ring. There was an implication of plagiarism from a woman who wrote a memoir about being groomed and […]

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

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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 […]

The bloom has come off the Rose

You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle

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Naomi Westfield is engaged to be married to the handsome, thoughtful Nicholas Rose. They are a saccharine pair, complete with their own wedding hashtag (#TrueLovesKissFromARose) and schmoopy social media posts. Naomi has a dark secret, though: she despises Nick and desperately wants out. But she can’t really afford to initiate the break-up, so she has to get Nick to want to leave her. And away we go. I look at Nicholas and realize I am actually marrying this man. Forty percent because I love him […]

You know when it’s not the book’s fault you didn’t like it, you just read it at the wrong time?

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

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I read On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous as a book club pick during the dead time between Christmas and New Year’s, and resented it the whole time for not being a lightweight romance or cozy mystery. If I had read it in deep February, I might have loved it. On Earth is a novel about inherited childhood trauma written as a letter by the narrator, Little Dog, to his mother, who will never read it. It jumps from events before his birth – the devastating […]

Willa & Hesper

Willa & Hesper by Amy Feltman

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I picked this up as part of this year’s BookRiot Read Harder challenge “A Debut Novel by a Queer Author.”  I picked up the Kindle Sample and then got it from the library because I knew I had to finish it.  Willa and Hesper fall in love and then break up (don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler), and then they have to deal with it: the breakup, their families, their ancestry, their traumas.  They each rebound to Europe: Willa on a Jewish heritage tour of […]

Sci-Fi + LGBTQ = TAKE MY MONEY NOW

I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi

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The premise of our story is that Earth receives a message that an alien planet is judging the fate of humanity, with the possible (most likely) outcome resulting in the extermination of humanity. While the masses lose their damn minds, 3 young adults all try and deliver messages or visit people important to them while they still have time.  On the surface, it’s a basic OHMYGODALIENSWEGONNADIE story. However, the author delivers some great depth and exploration of character and captures the nuances of teens/young adults […]



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