Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Talk we all need

The Talk by Alicia D. Williams

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cbr14bingo Elephant Level 2 & 3  Unfortunately, there is a large elephant in The Talk. One that is so large that we never actually hear what it is, but is as plain as the trunk on its face. It is The Talk black families will give to their sons when they start reaching certain milestones. The milestones that make other people look at them, but not in a positive way. And I am sadly sure that Alicia D. Williams and Briana Mukodiri Uchendu have given […]

Probably should have given up the ghost

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

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cbr14bingo Minds Level 2  At first The Taking of Jake Livingston was enjoyable. There was enough familiar to make it comfortable, but new enough to not be the same-old-same-old. Even a couple of clichés could be forgiven for they did move the story along. Then there were the clichés that bogged it down. Then the ending (SPOILER) where our narrator walks away free of any consequences from his actions. What could have been something different turned into the same old thing. I was rooting for […]

Growing up is hard to do

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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3.5 stars Official book description: Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father–despite his hard-won citizenship–Lily and Kath risk everything to […]

“You can’t change how other people think and act, but you’re in full control of you.”

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

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4.5 stars ustyce McAllister is a seventeen-year-old with a bright future, thanks to his grades and being lucky enough to have a mother who has worked herself to the bone to send him to the prestigious prep school in Atlanta. Then one evening, when trying to help his extremely drunken ex-girlfriend get home safely (she’s half-black, but looks more like her Norwegian mother than her black dad), he’s detained by a very aggressive cop who’s convinced he was trying to carjack and abduct the girl. […]

An interesting read about a white man coming to terms with his slave-owning family history.

Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

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I’d never heard of this until vel veeter’s review last year, but then immediately put it on my TBR as it sounded really interesting. And it was interesting! For the most part. Large parts were a slog. It also didn’t really do what I wanted it to do, except in the preface, which was written in 2014 and not included in the original publication. Edward Ball descends from the Ball family, wealthy plantation owners and people responsible for enslaving thousands of Black people over two […]

February Leftovers 2022

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Sleeping With Strangers by Eric Jerome Dickey

The Trees by Percival Everett

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Democracy by Carol Anderson

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These are my February leftovers, i.e. books that I read but didn’t give a full review either cuz I didn’t have time or didn’t have much to say. There are fewer than normal this month because Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois took up most of my time. Trouble Is What I Do **** Another good entry in the Leonid McGill series. It’s short and that streamlines the story more than its predecessors. I still read these as if Leonid is dead and NYC is his purgatory where […]



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