Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Desperate for answers, I tore through this book – and then there were no answers.

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

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Desperate for answers, I pretty much blocked out the world to finish this book as fast as I could – and then there were no answers. Susan Choi as an author is a neutral higher power who knows what you want and then calmly chooses not to give it to you, leaving you spinning in place and trying dumbly to figure out what on earth just happened. “Think, use your brain, you’ve got this.” This makes it sound like I disliked the book. I did […]

Common High School Tropes But Stays Classy about Anxiety

Komi Can't Communicate, vols. 1-2 by Tomohito Oda

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This is kind of a two-fer. I’ve seen some reviews or ads for Komi Can’t Communicate, so when I saw the first two volumes at a library, I felt I had to try them. The premise is actually a little interesting, which strikes me as a little unusual for a manga about high school kids in a non-fantasy setting. Tadano wants to get through high school without drawing attention. Komi is the school beauty queen. One would expect for them to connect because that’s just […]

Welcome to the funhouse

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

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Others have and will review this better than I can, but what the heck, i’ll take a stab at it. This book seems to inspire either intense love or intense hate and not much in between based on the reviews at goodreads. However, it won lots of prizes and was on several “best of” lists, so i gave it a shot. And my final verdict? An impressive high wire act that is a chore to read. The author has finely crafted a work of metafiction, […]

Fun tale of female revenge

The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

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I found this book to be a fun revenge tale that both stoked my feminist rage fires and provided an outlet for my anger. It was fun to read; while I didn’t love the resolution of the story, I liked the book overall. The book is set in a high school, where the boys rate the girls on their technique of a specific sex act. There are several different “types” of guys and girls represented in the book: the “good” guy who doesn’t like what’s […]

*bell tolls* SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

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Trust Exercise punched me in the gut, kicked me while I was down, and still I could not leave it alone.  I was once an insufferable THEEEEAAAAATER kid, and the teens on display here made my blood curdle- out of immediate and inescapable recognition. I was a pretentious brat until far too recently (still pretentious, just too old to be a brat) and roiling guilt flowed through my veins throughout the entire book. I have been working diligently on keeping my ideas off of other […]

I’m a Rowell Convert: Bingo #5!

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

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Why have I not read Rainbow Rowell until now? Why have I not listened to what everyone in CBR has been saying about Rowell for years? Eleanor & Park is my first foray into Rowell’s writing world, and I now need to consume everything she’s ever written. Both Faintingviolet and Crystalclear are big fans of hers, but as I tend to have a hard time with YA, I’ve steered clear. Which was a MISTAKE! Eleanor & Park is the most perfect story I’ve encountered in […]



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