Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You know who you are, I know who you are, and our Lady does, too.”

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different genres (paranormal fantasy) Being a queer teen can be difficult enough, even if you don’t come from a long line of magic users with very traditional gender roles. In Yadriel’s family, the brujos can summon the spirits of the dead and help them find peace in the afterlife. The brujas have tremendous healing powers. However, Yadriel’s family won’t let him go through the traditional rite for brujos, because of the gender he was born with. The only ones who seem to […]

“His big, obnoxious Scorpio energy is invading your cozy Cancer safe space!”

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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I saved this for Halloween* and I’m so glad I did. It was so atmospheric and spooky and fun, with great worldbuilding and great characters. The only reason it’s not getting five stars is that I was straight up able to predict everything that happened in the plot, because the author telegraphed it all pretty hard. It didn’t really affect my enjoyment that much, because the fun here was the world and the characters, but I of all people should just not be able to […]

Excellent recommendation, definitely second!

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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Thank you for the rec, Mobius_Walker! My thought while reading this was omg this would make an AMAZING Pixar movie. And then I was like, too bad we already have Coco. And then I was like HOLD UP, WAIT A SECOND, THAT’S SOME INGRAINED THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE-ISM SPEAKING. I stand by my original thought. This movie would make for an INCREDIBLE animated movie, specifically, because when you’re in the realm of animation you can really imbue a world with realism while not being […]

It was indeed a fresh breath

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

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A recommendation by polyesque! I ended up liking this but I not loving it! I think part of that could have been alleviated by my figuring out a bit sooner that this book was taking place much earlier than I thought it did–perhaps the lack of cell phones should have done it, but I spent a good portion thinking that Juliet was in the 2020s or maybe the 2010s, which gives a very different veneer to many of the ideas that she’s encountering. The author’s […]

Sadly, one of my biggest disappointments of the year

Gul book (Yellow Book) by Zeshan Shakar

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Official book description (any errors in translation are mine): Mani is a newly graduated economist and has just secured a job at the Ministry of Education and Research. He is a young man who lives with his father in a flat at Haugenstua, in the east of Oslo, and has a girlfriend he thinks he’s going to marry someday. Preferably, he’d like to use his abilities in the private sector, where the prestige and the money lies, because he’s painfully aware that both his girlfriend […]

“The thing is, you can’t just be yourself if whenever people look at you they see something entirely different.”

We Are Totally Normal by Rahul Kanakia

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This wasn’t really my thing (marketing fail big time), but I can appreciate it for what it was. So, firstly, this is NOT a romance. If you came here looking for fluff and cuteness and happily ever afters, you are not going to be pleased with what you get (I suspect this is one reason for the lower ratings; the wrong audience is finding this book, and not understanding or liking what they are finding). What this is, is a coming of age contemporary Questioning […]



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