Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The concept is better than the execution

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

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Official book description: The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away. This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all […]

What Kind of Girl…

What Kind of Girl by Alyssa Sheinmel

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Trigger warning: Abuse, self-harm, bulimia    Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.  I think this book did a very good job of showcasing how domestic violence can occur with teens. The last time I recall having a big discussion about this was when that Lifeftime movie starring Fred Savage and Candace Cameron called “No One Would Tell” that followed a young couple in love, but the boy in questions starts abusing the girlfriend. That […]

We agree to disagree (Bingo Blackout!)

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks

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#CBR11 Bingo: Two heads are better than one (would also work for Illustrated or Youths!) For two months of the year, all through high school, Deja and Josiah are best friends, while working at the local Pumpkin Patch extraordinaire. For four years, from the start of September until Halloween, they’ve been dutifully serving customers in the Succotash hut, and sharing pretty much everything with one another for those two months. Once they go back to school, they don’t really interact. This year is different. Deja and […]

Jewish, Immigrant(s, they get the job done) (Bingo: Own Voices)

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

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The US has been ravaged by war and disease (and war over disease) and Noam Álvaro is sixteen and the child of Atlantean (Georgia, that is, not Atlantis) illegal immigrants to Carolina who is involved in the Atlantean Rights movement — until he, too, falls sick with the Fever. Unlike most of the population, however, Noam survives — and wakes up a technomancer, with the ability to talk to computer systems and all manner of technology. And then things get worse.

I came into the Grishaverse backwards

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

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I came across the Grishaverse backwards.  Last year I read a write up for Leigh Bardugo’s The Language of Thorns and was intrigued by the concept of a book of fairytales that characters in her Grishaverse would have read or been told, when they were children.  The piece said knowledge of the other books was not necessary to enjoy Language of Thorns and I put it on my Cannonball gift exchange wish list.  I was delighted to discover it in my gift box (Thank you, […]

A bit like “About a Boy”, except here the Hugh Grant character is a heroin addict

Sangen om en brukket nese (The Ballad of a Broken Nose) by Arne Svingen

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4.5 stars Bart is about to turn thirteen. He’s named after Bart Simpson, because it seems his mother wanted him to be tough and clever and able to handle himself. This is also why she’s signed him up for boxing lessons. He dutifully  goes to practise several times a week, and one of these days, he may actually start hitting. His boxing coach suggests he may want to try out for some other sport, which Bart can understand, as except for having a pretty good […]



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