Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Turn This Into Another Movie Stat

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

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CW: pregnancy, abortion (my speaking about it, not an indication of what is in the book!) This is decidedly not a spoiler-y because everyone and their mother has read The Hate U Give by now. If you haven’t, I’m very confused as to why you are reading a review for the Lucas-esque prequel-that-was-written after. Again, it is no spoiler that Maverick is going to have two kids. The story begins VERY much in media res with him finding out that Iesha is pregnant with Seven, so much so that […]

CBRBingo – Banned Books. THUG Life = Real life

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

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The fact this is a banned book makes me annoyed. Banning it for language, for violence because you don’t think youth should be exposed to that? Okaaaay. I mean, the world is violent but I am aware and intentional of what media and entertainment I let my kid consume, so fine. But banning it for BEING ANTI-COP??? THAT IS MISSING THE ENTIRE POINT OF THOMAS’ BOOK, and SIDING WITH RACISM. So, when I saw the Banned Book square in CBR Bingo, I knew just what […]

Absolute perfection

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

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CBR11 Bingo: Own Voices. This is the best book I’ve read all year. And considering that it’s been read by 28 other Cannonballers, that shouldn’t be too surprising. Starr Carter goes to a largely white private school, but lives in the poor, largely black, community of Garden Heights. While at a friend’s party, she runs into childhood friend (and first boyfriend), Khalil. He’s selling drugs now, a fact which disappoints and confuses her because of how drugs have ravaged his mother. The party is broken […]

Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

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This won’t be a long review. I don’t have anything substantive to add to what’s already been written and said about Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to say anything at all. As a middle-aged, middle-class white guy from the very white Deep Midwest, I’m several degrees of separation from this book’s intended audience, but that’s exactly why it’s an important read for people like me. Starr lives in a rough neighborhood where everyone knows her because […]

I did not expect this.

Blended by Sharon Draper

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Last week, my boss gave me this book and asked me if I would prepare a presentation on it for some workshops we have coming up. It looked cute: pink and white stripes on the cover and a girl spilling her ice cream. Sounded fine to me! And the book was indeed fine. Blended tells the story of Isabella, a sixth grader with divorced parents. She struggles to adapt to the back-and-forth custody arrangement that her parents have, and doesn’t feel like she can call […]

Post-Cannonball roundup

The Nine Taylors by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

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I actually read more books this year than I have since I can remember. I just don’t have the energy to review them all for various reasons. Last year I did a round-up of all the books I didn’t properly review, and I’d like to do the same now (I’m only counting this review as 1 book read, because even though it’s lots of books, it’s not a full review for each and there’s no overarching theme like I usually do in my multi-book reviews). […]



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