Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I mean, you can know someone is dying on an intellectual level, but emotionally it hasn’t really hit you, and then when it does, that’s when you feel like sh**.”

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is typical Jesse Andrews. This style of writing is exactly like Haters (I read them in reverse). The nice thing is both are standalone titles. I read the paper edition but looked at the hardcover and movie cover editions and have to say, I like the bright yellow cover best. Then the hard cover as it makes the characters somewhat like I pictured them. However, the movie? Oh boy! I think they totally missed on what the characters […]

Dearly beloved

Something Very Sad Happened: A Toddler’s Guide to Understanding Death by Bonnie Zucker

I Miss You: a First Look at Death (First Look at Books) by Pat Thomas

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While I do not necessarily agree with Bonnie Zucker that there is not anything for the under four crowd about introducing the subject of death, I do admit that I am hard-pressed to mention anything other than Something Very Sad Happened: A Toddler’s Guide to Understanding Death. It is an accessible way to introduce the child to the loss of a loved one. Due to the way it is presented, you can adapt the book to your needs. This is done by highlighted words that […]

“There are new monsters now”

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

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This novel sneaks up on you. You’re lulled into comfort with descriptions of old video rental places, suburban living rooms, and the polite peace of the Midwest before being startled awake by sudden glances of violence and fear. These shocks originate from movies. Movies within movies. Were they intended for you to see? Why are they here? Who spliced an almost still image of heavy breathing and a woman with a bag over her head into She’s All That? Uncertainty creeps around every corner- breeding fear, […]

Well, I got to 52!

P.S. I love you by Cecilia Ahern

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Ahern wrote this book when she was 21. The premise is clever, a bitter-sweet gimmick where Holly’s husband dies, but he leaves her a series of letters to help her cope in the first year without him. Each letter has a surprise or a challenge and always ends with “P.S. I love you.” “Their plan had been very simple: to stay together for the rest of their lives. ” The book however does not quite work. Writing about the grief and pain of losing someone […]

“The worst thing about being naked and then being hit by a car is that road rash is a problem for skin.”

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I might be a little burned out with poetry or just have heard and read so much of Neil Hilborn, that I am not jumping up and down over The Future by him as I have with his other book or with other Button Poetry Poets. Yet, The Future is still amazing. He knows what he is talking about with depression, life and death. He has lived, and is living, his subject matter. He “gets it” and wants to share that with you. He is […]

“Sometimes we get it wrong the first time. But you only have to get it right once.”

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#CBR10Bingo: Brain Candy A year ago, Paige’s boyfriend died in a tragic drowning accident, and she is still suffering from nightmares and is known around town as “the girl whose boyfriend died”. She hasn’t been able to even get near a pool since it happened. It seems like everywhere she goes, she gets “the look” of people who don’t really see her, but just associate her with the dead boy she’d dated for two months before his life was tragically cut short. Determined that she […]



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