Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Tanks were normal. Bombs were normal. Why couldn’t eating be normal?”

Parvana’s Journey by Deborah Ellis

by Leave a Comment

CBR12bingo Green Parvana’s Journey is the second book in Ellis’ The Breadwinner series and picks up shortly after Parvana and her father have left Kabul, Afghanistan, circa 2000, in search of the rest of their family. Ellis continues to focus on matters of war and violence from the perspective of Afghanistan’s refugee children. Like The Breadwinner, this is a short YA novel, appropriate for children age 10 or so and older. It shows the horrors of war and family separation through the eyes of Parvana […]

Fresh Start and Fresh View on War in Afghanistan

The Breadwinner: A Novel by Deborah Ellis

by Leave a Comment

Cbr12bingo Fresh Start Published in 2000, The Breadwinner is the first book in a four-part YA series that looks at events in Afghanistan from the point of view of an eleven-year-old girl named Parvana. This young adult series introduces readers to the war-filled history of a country that had once been more open and free but has come under the control of the Taliban. The Breadwinner has been made into an animated film and graphic novel, which I read a few Cannonballs ago. I can […]

Feels like the first time 🎶

The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky (Montague Siblings, #1.5) by Mackenzi Lee

by Leave a Comment

I did not expect this to be so uncomfortable! I do not do well with awkward. But it ended sweetly, so I feel better now. This whole novella (which was a two hour listen on audio) centers on Monty worrying about his first time having sex with Percy. Monty is self-conscious about his past sexual exploits, worried about their future, and still harboring some self-hatred that makes it hard for him to understand why Percy would want to be with him. Also, Percy is a […]

“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

by Leave a Comment

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 […]

Ghost Story

by Leave a Comment

The author’s note to National Book Award nominated YA novel Thirteen Doorways states that  “… it is … a story about girls. Girls with ambitions, brains, desires, talents, hungers. It is a story about how the world like to punish girls for their appetites, even for their love.” Inspired by the author’s mother-in-law’s real life experience in a Chicago orphanage in the 1940s, Thirteen Doorways is the story of Francesca (Frankie), a teen who along with her older brother and younger sister has been left […]

Hopefully It’s Almost Over

The Tyrant's Tomb (Trials of Apollo 4) by Rick Riordan

by Leave a Comment

Start with a zombie attack while transporting a fallen comrade home, using tattoos to decipher bits of prophecy, metal greyhounds (robot dogs seem a little out of place but it does kind of work), a bookstore cat, trying to figure out how to counter a massive attack/invasion on Camp Jupiter, and facing off against formerly dead (?) emperor of Rome (the nastier ones), and conclude with some of Lester’s godliness starting to come back in time for what hopefully is the final face off against […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo