Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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About GentleRain

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Your jack of all trades eccentric. Knows a little about a lot and a lot about a little. Tends to mainly read non-fiction (history, true crime, old gossip, etc), SF/F, horror, graphic novels, "genre" books. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: GentleRain's Quick Questions interview.)

GentleRain's Reviews:

“Even when you have it rough, never forget to be good to others. Because that kindness comes back around again.”

The Love We Share by Hina Ten

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Machi is a young man looking after a sweet two-year-old, Kokoa, by himself. With no job other than survival sex work, he is homeless, couch surfing, and ill when he faints in the street and is helped by Mihiro. Mihiro remembers him from high school and offers to let Machi and Kokoa stay with him until Machi is back on his feet. Machi has had a hard life and is leery of the offer, assuming that Mihiro only wants him to stay so that he […]

“I want to be the most important person to him in this world. And I want him to choose that himself. He’s someone who should be allowed to make that choice.”

No God in Eden (Volume 2) by Yuma Ichinose

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Light spoilers follow! The concept of No God in Eden was interesting enough to me to try to overcome my leeriness about ABO manga (it’s usually not very good, in my opinion — I’ve read too much great ABO fanfic to settle, as someone who was lurking around on Livejournal when it was first invented) and the first volume was solid enough for me to pick up the second one. But I don’t know if I’ll continue with it, because I looked at the summaries for the […]

A Well-Produced Cooking-Themed Indie Comics Anthology

Knapsack Magazine Vol 2: Butter by Assorted

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I love a comics anthology with a specific vision, and I enjoyed this second volume of Lucky Pocket Press’s Knapsack Magazine. Their overall aim is to replicate the feeling of reading manga magazines in the late 90’s/early 2000s, and as someone who grew up reading those, I think they’re doing a very nice job. The sense of picking up a thick book and delving into all of the different serials and little side articles comes through. This is clearly a labor of love with a lot […]

“For three months, I’d like the three of you to live together. Then Meguru will formally choose her father.”

Dysfunctional Family Theory (Volume 1) by Mayo Tsurukame

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Even though there are many things that this book does that I don’t normally like — miscommunication, cliffhangers, multi volume work where I don’t know the ending so now I’m locked into potentially buying several more volumes, putting a child into emotionally fraught situations I don’t think she  should be in — Tsurukame has done such a good job here and made such an enjoyable group of characters that I was won over despite myself and will pick up the second book whenever it appears. […]

“When things get tough, you find out who’s in your corner. That’s all you need to claw your way back from rock bottom.”

I Wanna Be Your Girl (Volume 2) by Umi Takase

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Spoilers follow throughout this review! This second volume of I Wanna Be Your Girl continues to follow the journey of Akira and Hime. Akira is a trans girl who has been allowed to wear the girls’ uniform to school, but the mockery and backlash was strong enough that her best friend Hime decides to wear the boys’ uniform in solidarity. Hime and Akira have always been very close and they now are starting to make their first faltering steps towards other friends while learning how to […]

“As long as you were pursuing your dreams, that was all that mattered.”

Light of My Life by Takiba and Fuuko Minami

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This had been sitting on my to-read shelf for a while, and CBR has been helping me to tackle some of these books that I’ve felt sort of meh about and either keep them or get them out the door. Light of My Life is one volume, so it has that going for it, and it’s a fast read. Aki, Minagi, and Sarara were all best friends in high school; Aki wanted to become a pro soccer player, Minagi wanted to be a doctor, and Sarara […]



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