Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I was probably the target audience for this book when it was written, 25 years ago. But I still love it today.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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“Your words are kindling, twigs covered in wax, soaked in lamp oil, sticky with tar. Your breath is a match, scratching along sandpaper… Whisper break the silence, one word, then two…with every word spoken a loud victory. The words burst into flames, the silence, broken.” This imagery from the novel’s foreward was so powerful and poetic, and the story hadn’t even started yet! But what a great story it is, and beautifully told – even though one doesn’t think of freshman year of high school […]

Yes, please speak

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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After finding Shout, her memoir follow-up to Speak, at a local thrift shop, it felt only fitting that I found Speak at one too. A quality copy, too, unlike the copy of Shout, which had been missing its dust jacket. I had thought back when I read Shout that I needed to see what had caused such a stir, inspiring book bans and making uptight folks lose their cool, and now that I’ve read it… this is quite tame, honestly. Like almost always, the book bans feel like a gross […]

A book that’s just as good as everyone says it is.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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This was very well done. I can see why it’s so popular, and how it could easily mean a lot to a lot of people. I’ve actually had this on my TBR for years, but since I was set to read Anderson’s memoir SHOUT for the Read Harder Challenge this year, I figured it would be a good idea to finally pick it up, since the subject matter is closely related. Spoilers for the premise below, if you somehow don’t know it. This was a […]

Some Young Adult to close out Bingo

Enchantee by Gita Trelease

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Lady Rogue by Jenn Bennett

The Lovely War by Julie Berry

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  Four more reviews to finish catching up on my backlog. CBR11Bingo squares for I Love This (Enchantee), Award Winner (Speak), Far and Away (the Lady Rogue) and Reader’s Choice over Own Voices (The Lovely War).   Enchantee (apologies, but I can’t figure out how to accent the ‘e’) is a beautifully written young adult romance. Set in Paris during the final days of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI’s excesses, it shows both the splendor of the rich and the desperation of the poor. Camille […]

Required reading for all teens, parents of teens, or anyone who knows a teen.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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CBR11 Bingo: Youths!   This was one of those books that I had heard of but really didn’t know what it was about. I picked it up at a discount book sale based on name recognition alone; when I needed a YA selection for this bingo square, I dug it out of the TBR pile. Speak is a novel about a girl named Melinda, and picks up just as she starts her first year of high school.  From day one she is a social outcast […]

The Fibonacci Novel

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Is there anything we all have in common? What could link an English Pilgrim en route to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Alan Turing, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, a middle aged computer programmer and a little girl? I suppose if there is one thing humans share that other creatures do not, it is our particular ability to communicate: we can tell stories, remember the past and form plans for the future. Louisa Hall’s 2015 novel Speak addresses that, but through her unique stories, which seem so […]



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