Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Please read this book.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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CBR Bingo: They/She/He (author and one of the main characters are trans) A book like this makes me thankful for CBR because I get to talk about something that made me so happy. Cemetery Boys is a delight. Yadriel is a teenager in a family of brujx. They want him to follow in their footsteps, but the problem is they’re having some trouble accepting that Yadriel is a boy who wants to become a brujo (rather than a girl who should become a bruja). Determined to prove […]

A House in Pieces

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

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While a classic, I’ve never gotten around to reading The House on Mango Street, but my mentor wants to add it to our class reading list and has asked me to teach it. I blew through it in about six hours, and I don’t know why I’ve avoided this book for such a long time. Like many classics, I’d heard the title bandied about in conversation, but never any details about the plot, and my idea of what this books was about (a house in a […]

“…loving Blackness enough to see its assets so that dark children matter.” Dr. Bettina L. Love

Hair Story by NoNieqa Ramos

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I’m having a hard time explaining just how much I loved this book, but I’m going to do my best. First off, Hair Story is own voices written & illustrated, and both the author, NoNieqa Ramos, and the illustrator, Keisha Morris, include their own hair stories at the back of the book, which was a lovely surprise.     Second, do you see these illustrations? The texture and colors and patterns and perfection of them?  You can see the love in that grandmother’s face, the joy in […]

Support trans youth. Believe trans youth. Love trans youth.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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Holy crap. Stop reading this review and just go read this book instead. Trust me. Okay, you’re still here. Fine. Yadriel wants to prove himself to his family. Prove himself as a brujo, as a capable addition to the family business, and, most importantly, as a man. Yadriel is a young, high school aged trans boy in a family of brujxs. The men are all brujos who help spirits cross over to the afterlife, and the women are brujas who heal those still living. Yadriel is […]

I wish this had been longer and more fleshed out. #CBRBingo – Cannonballer Says

Spellbound (Magic in Manhattan, #1) by Allie Therin

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This was a solid first novel, and a good start to this fantasy/romance series. This is paranormal/fantasy romance set in 1925, where some people have paranormal powers but most don’t, and magic is a well kept secret. Our main characters are Rory Brodigan, a scryer, who can see the history of any object, and Arthur Kenzie, a politician’s son who fought in WWI, and who uses his wealth to employ paranormals to keep the world safe. Rory is caught up in their net when a […]

Mexico in my Kitchen in a Book

The Mexican Home Kitchen by Mely Martinez

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Based on her years writing her blog, Mexico in My Kitchen, Mely Martinez has brought us The Mexican Home Kitchen. It’s a beautiful book with a nice variety of recipes. I received this as an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I grew up in Central Texas with Tex-Mex as my home food. Tex-Mex is an anglicized variant of northern Mexican home cooking. It doesn’t take much effort to find more traditional Mexican fare in and around Austin, but it was our […]



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