Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You’re a creep. And to be honest, you kinda like being a creep…Don’t you?” — Phantom of the Opera YA Graphic Novel Romance Retelling!

Please Be My Star by Victoria Grace Elliott

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Please Be My Star is a YA romance retelling of Phantom of the Opera, with Erika being a shy, self-described creepy teenage girl and Christian being a handsome popular guy. Erika has moved to a new school and decides she wants to write and direct a one act play as part of the One-Act Stage Festival. She ends up with Christian, handsome, charming, and upright, as the star of her play. He’s enthusiastic about the role and his friends join as actors and tech for […]

“It isn’t wrong to want to do other things.”

Ride On by Faith Erin Hicks

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I always enjoy Faith Erin Hicks’ YA work and Ride On was no exception. I re-read it before I started writing this review and liked it just as much the second time, so it’s definitely a keeper. Ride On follows Victoria, who starts riding at a new stable after leaving her more competitive one. She doesn’t want to make any new friends and rejects the attempts to befriend her by the friendly Norrie. Over the course of the novel, Victoria has to figure out if […]

Two tales of Charlotte

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas

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I finished reading these two books recently, and since they shared a common named protagonist, it seemed like a no brainer to review them together.  Both of these feature Charlotte Holmes, solver of mysteries, but in very different settings. Book:  A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro “The two of us, we’re the best kind of disaster. Apples and oranges. Well, more like apples and machetes.”  There are many iterations and retelling of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson out there these days.  This one is […]

Not a damn turtle in sight

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

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CBR12 BINGO: Orange I keep trying to like young adult fiction, to the point where it might be unfair of me to review the genre, since it’s clearly not my thing. There are exceptions, of course (my recent discovery of Eleanor & Park stands out), but generally all I can expect from YA is a solid character to whom teenagers can relate. Turtles All the Way Down scores in its representation of a teenage girl with severe anxiety and OCD, but the rest of it just […]

My First Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

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CBR12 BINGO: Nostalgia? For the Nostalgia BINGO square, I googled “books set in the 80s” and Eleanor & Park came up. Having seen many positive reviews for Rainbow Rowell on CBR, I decided to get it from my local library (hooray for curbside pickup!). Young Adult isn’t my usual genre. While I always appreciate good storytelling and can admire an author’s attempts to create characters that are relatable to teens, I rarely love a young adult novel. I can enjoy YA, but I’m not often […]

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 […]



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