Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You can’t change how other people think and act, but you’re in full control of you.”

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

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4.5 stars ustyce McAllister is a seventeen-year-old with a bright future, thanks to his grades and being lucky enough to have a mother who has worked herself to the bone to send him to the prestigious prep school in Atlanta. Then one evening, when trying to help his extremely drunken ex-girlfriend get home safely (she’s half-black, but looks more like her Norwegian mother than her black dad), he’s detained by a very aggressive cop who’s convinced he was trying to carjack and abduct the girl. […]

Little book, big story

The Golden Hour by Niki Smith

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Triggers with experiencing violence event are explored in The Golden Hour. This is a sweet look at the difficulties one boy faces with anxiety, depression, and his PTSD after witnessing gun violence involving a teacher at school. Through therapy, grounding techniques and new friends Manuel starts healing. I know it seems odd that it is sweet, but Niki Smith tastefully shows you the journey Manuel takes. Smith brings in elements of Manuel coming from a single parent home. They show you a bit of his […]

A hopeful book about a school shooting.

Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen

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I would have probably gotten around to this eventually, but it was this month’s pick for my IRL book club, and I ended up liking it quite a bit, more for its tone than for the actual book itself. It’s very hopeful. But Columbine was the better book, in my opinion. Not that we have to compare the two, but even just for the amount of time and effort put into that book, the output was that much more impactful, and well put together after […]

#CBR10Bingo: Fahrenheit 451 – The Hate U Give

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#CBR10Bingo: Fahrenheit 451 (one of the ten most banned or challenged books in 2017) Starr feels like she’s living two lives, and in a way she is. She goes to a prestigious private school along with her siblings, where they are among the only black students. She has a white boyfriend, who calls her “Fresh Princess”, thinking she’s a bit like Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. She lives in a poor and rough neighbourhood, where drug dealing and gun violence isn’t unusual. Her […]

The Young Thousands

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Hello, how are you? Having a good Saturday? Did you let yourself forget for a few minutes that everything is garbage? Please, allow me to bring you back to nightmare reality with this review. Every so often I read a book and I think, “Everyone should read this book.” I’ve thought that (and probably written it) about several books I’ve read since joining Cannonball Read, but I’ve never felt it as strongly as I have about this book. Another Day in the Death of America […]

Hoodies Up

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  Best for: Readers who want to learn more about real-life incidents of racism and gun violence. In a nutshell: Ms. Fulton and Mr. Martin, Trayvon’s parents, tell the story of the murder of their son, from the weeks leading up to it through the verdict. Line that sticks with me: “And we’re gonna win because we have no other choice. We cannot allow a legal precedent to be established in a city that tells us that it is legal for a man to kill […]



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