Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I guess we’re almost friends now, or as friendly as you can get when you’re not one hundred percent sure the other person isn’t framing you for murder.” (Blackout Bingo Card)

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

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4.5 stars CBR17 Bingo: School (The Breakfast Club with murder. So much high school drama) On a Monday afternoon, five high schoolers find themselves in detention after someone planted phones in their bags. They all claim the phones are not theirs, but the teacher is not listening. There is Cooper, the star athlete, with a promising career in baseball ahead of him. There is Addy, always perfectly put together and the homecoming princess. There is Nate, the school’s bad boy, who is on probation for […]

Football Season

One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller

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Read as part of cbr17bingo: school setting. The book takes place mostly at a high school, revolving around a football team.  In reading about the lives of trans people, fictional and otherwise, the thing they want most is to be treated normally. Obviously, it’s difficult to do on the one hand with the whole country lurching from mild acceptance of trans people to full-on hostility against them. But it’s also difficult when dealing with the well-intentioned, supportive ally crowd who just wants to let them […]

“I” is for “Insomniacs”

Insomniacs After School vol. 1 by Makoto Ojiro

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Bingo 7: “I” is for “Insomniacs” Title: “Insomniacs After School”; relevance to the “I” square self-explanatory. I was kind of surprised how much I liked this for it being a high school slice of life kind of thing. Basic plot is two students with legit sleep issues (for very different reasons – one seemingly medical, the other potentially emotional) bond over finding a good nap spot in the abandoned astronomy observatory at their school.  Then it turns into a school club story when a teacher […]

Much Bigger CW Needed

Dan Da Dan vol. 1 by Yukinobu Tatsu

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I have seen Dan Da Dan manga all over social media/the internet, so when I saw volume 1 at the library I picked it up out of curiosity. The premise is interesting: two high school outsiders, one obsessed with aliens, the other believes in spirits, dare each other to prove the other person’s belief is invalid by sending each other to the most likely haunted/abduction sites in the area, per the web. Guess what happens next? One thing I hadn’t noticed initially was that there […]

Someone has a secret that’s pretty easy to guess and who really cares anyways

Unordinary vol 1 by uru-chan

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Bingo 21: Liberate John and Seraphina both want to be free (liberated) from social strictures and expectations somehow. But the rules of the world they live in are not developed. But is you sort of imagine a My Hero Academia world where more people are un-powered than not, it makes a little more sense. They both seem to think that you should judge folks for who they are. Not whether or how much power they have. Sound familiar? Unordinary is highly cliché; this is the […]

“I know you’re out of practice, Shiloh, but the point of bringing men home isn’t to argue with them.”

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

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4.5 stars Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Plants or flowers on the cover Cary and Shiloh were best friends in high school. They saw each other every day, told each other everything, and were utterly inseparable. Everyone thought they were in love and would end up together, but by graduation, they’re still just friends. Both come from unstable family environments and dream of getting out of Omaha. Shiloh is going to college to become an actress and Cary has joined the Navy. Once Cary finishes boot […]



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