Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I liked this upon finishing it five months ago . . .

The Luminaries (The Luminaries, #1) by Susan Dennard

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. . . but I have since had almost everything about it fall out of my head. Had I written this review right after finishing like a good little reviewer, it would have been four stars, but I think the fact that it hasn’t stuck with me and I had to look up so much in order to even write this paltry review is definitely working against the book, and I’ve bumped it down to 3.5 stars, rounded down, as a result. Also I remembered […]

ARRRgust Reads

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller

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Daughter of the Pirate King:       Alosa is only seventeen, but is one of the most feared pirates in the world. The only one more feared is her father, the notorious Pirate King. He has a third of a map to the legendary siren’s treasure, and sends Alosa to pretend to be captured by rival pirates so she can search their ship for another piece. She has a handy trick up her sleeve. Her mother was a siren, so she has the powers […]

What if Carrie had supportive friends and family?

Hexed (2021) by Julia Tuffs

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Bingo square ‘Bodies, Bodies’: The main character has to deal with the uncontrollable nature of her own body and its possibly controllable impulses, and there’s also discussion of how men feel entitled to women’s bodies and reducing women to bodies. Hexed (2021) is a witchy YA book and a fun short-ish read. After being forced to move around a lot by her slightly flaky mother, Jessie Jones has just started at a new high school near her family’s roots on the Isle of Wight (a […]

“An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched”

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2012) by emily m. danforth

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CBR Bingo square “Queer Lives”: The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a queer YA novel, and was banned in a middle school in 2015 in Delaware for “inappropriate language.” I mean, fuck that. The novel was also criticised by the School Library Journal for its length and pacing, and my inclination is also to say fuck that, but I do understand that this is the kind of thing where YMMV. It did take a while to get into, but I was fully immersed when I did. […]

“Before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously”

Sawkill Girls (2018) by Claire Legrand

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I find it hard to write or think about YA fiction without thinking about Taylor Swift sometimes–in this particular case, ‘Seven’ from Folklore (2020): “Please picture me in the weeds / Before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously /Any time I wanted.” Sawkill Girls is a scream of a book beneath its veneer of preppy popularity politics and teenage drama and desire: a scream of fear and despair and fury, a loud barbaric yawp against vanishing and silencing, a howl against monsters and the different […]

“Traps upon traps. And riddles upon riddles”

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

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3.5 stars Official book description: Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why — or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch — and his love of puzzles, riddles, and […]



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