Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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“He was like a freezer item that had thawed too quickly on the outside and was melting everywhere, while the inside was still frozen solid. Somehow he was expressing more emotion than at any time in his life before, while simultaneously feeling less, feeling nothing.” ― Sally Rooney, Normal People CBR15Bingo: Adulthood CBR15Passport: Books from different countries Connell and Marianne grow up together in the same small town in Ireland. Connell is the nerd and jock who hangs out with the wealthier, more popular kids. […]

Lazy Hazy Days

A Nest of Gentlefolk and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev

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CBR15 Passport Russia There is something about the, dare I say, second tier Russian classical authors, such as Turgenev and Gogol, that I find almost mesmerizing.  The primary characters are the gentlefolk mentioned in the title – rich enough to have inherited some sort of estate (complete with serfs and house servants, needless to say), but no wealthier than that.  The men rarely have any profession, other than the occasional doctor, and spend most of their days hunting, fishing, and visiting their neighbors.  The women […]

“…for a while I needed to believe that my mother was not dead and that she would come back.”

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

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Somehow I never read this as a kid and had always wondered if was any good. I finally picked this up on vacation in August (only £3, bless used bookstores) and it turns out that this is a classic and won the Newbery Medal for a reason. Often when you read a children’s/middle grade book, there’s a preachy tone or a sense they’re trying hard to impart a lesson, and that lack of authentic voice makes the book feel boring and irritating. Walk Two Moons […]

“You kids are different from the farm animals who have no way out. Running away in order to live is fine. Perfectly fine.”

Silver Spoon Vol. 1-15 by Hiromu Arakawa

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CBR14Bingo: Series (it’s a series) This is one of my favorite manga series and one I was re-reading again just out of a desire to read something cheerful and warm-hearted. Silver Spoon is by the same author as Fullmetal Alchemist, her much more famous work. It follows Yuugo Hachiken, who decides to go to an agricultural high school in rural Hokkaido because he hit a plateau in mainstream academia and was pushing himself so hard to succeed that he’d lost all enjoyment in life. By going […]

Getting Steamy in San Francisco: #CannonBookClub2022!

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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Fog rolling in off the Pacific! Illicit kisses in smoky clubs! Steamed buns filled with jammy pork and spices! What can I say about Last Night at the Telegraph Club that Malinda Lo didn’t already say with total confidence and care when she wrote the book? She felt as if speaking would ruin everything-then they’d have to put a name to this feeling between them, this rapidly growing heat and longing that made the sliver of air between their bodies charged with electricity. She could swear […]

“Don’t you think it’s possible that this could be good? That maybe this won’t lead to disaster after all? What if we find out that we fit together, like your grandparents and their hands?” (Bingo #8)

Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon

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Blackout is a novel comprised of several short stories covering five hours in the course of one night in New York as it experiences a blackout. Tiffany D. Jackson writes The Long Walk which is broken up into five acts, Nic Stone contributes Mask Off (perhaps my favorite of the bunch), Ashley Woodfolk’s Made to Fit, Dhonielle Clayton provides All the Great Love Stories… and Dust, as well as being the person who sparked the project into existence, Angie Thomas’s No Sleep Till Brooklyn, and […]



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