Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An extremely unexpected new favorite.

Liar, Dreamer, Thief by Maria Dong

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This book spoke to me. Katrina Kim is the most lovable, vulnerable mess of a human. I would find it concerning how much I identified with her* if I wasn’t too busy enjoying every bonkers moment of this book. I was worried as I approached the end, given how I’d lost my mind over it so far, that the ending wouldn’t do Katrina justice, but I shouldn’t have been worried. I cried happy tears and felt much resolution. *I have OCD and she does too, […]

How to handle mental health issues in a novel

The Art of Insanity by Christine Webb

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CBR15passport – a new to me author My Cannonball15 is off to a great start; I’m three for three so far. This book, The Art of Insanity by Christine Webb, was an “extra surprise” gift from Black Raven as part of the CBR14 Holiday Book Exchange. It is a wonderful story about a high school senior named Natalie Cordova who has bipolar disorder and who struggles with the illness, its stigma, and her friends’ and family members’ reactions to it. Author Christine Webb tells readers […]

“Sometimes Paris felt his whole life was in slow motion with ominous music playing over it.”

Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble (Winner Bakes All, #2) by Alexis Hall

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I don’t think this is a book anybody but Alexis Hall could have pulled off. This is a romance and a book about a baking competition, yes, but it’s also a book about a person with severe anxiety, and what that anxiety does to his relationships with the people around him. Paris isn’t an easy character to like, and his story isn’t an easy ride. But it was worth it! Paris Daillencourt ends up on Bake Expectations because his flatmate secretly put him up for […]

The holidays are fucking hard

This Winter by Alice Oseman

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“When people know you’re mentally ill, most people either want to ignore it completely or they treat you like your strange, scary, or fascinating. Very few people are actually good at the middle ground. The middle ground isn’t hard. It’s just being there. Being helpful, if help is needed. Being understanding, even if they don’t understand everything.” ― Alice Oseman, This Winter “I think sometimes,’ says Nick, ‘you’re so scared of being a burden that it makes you terrified to ask for help. But you […]

The Heart Principle grabbed mine and didn’t let go

The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

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Helen Hoang’s The Heart Principle was everything I wanted and more. Our heroine Anna Sun is going through it. She is a violinist stuck in a loop after a performance video goes viral on YouTube. With every practice session, she wants to replicate that moment with precision. She ends up burned out and unable to finish the song. She is attempting therapy to find a breakthrough. Later that day, her boyfriend asks to “see other people” as an excuse to know that he’s ready to […]

I would have written myself into his skin if only I could, like a prisoner marking the walls of his cell, just to prove I was still alive and that I did not drift, untouching and untouched, through a universe of empty spaces and fading stars.

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

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Nobody puts me into someone else’s head quite the way Alexis Hall does. Sometimes that’s a problem for me, like when I had to bail on Rosalind Palmer because the narcissist relationship was too visceral for me. In Glitterland, being in Ash’s head meant I was still having that visceral experience and I could see the lights of the oncoming disaster train, but I also could see how he was going to move through and repair the damage he does. It engaged my compassion without […]



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