Cannonball Read 9

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

All’s Fair in Love and Dragonfire.

Heartstone by Elle Katharine White

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This book really shouldn’t work as well as it does. I was expecting something more like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies — a humorous retelling of the tale of Elizabeth and Darcy but this time with dragons instead of zombies. And yes, this book has dragons, but it leaves P&P&Z in the dust. Where that book was trying so hard to be a clever mashup of genres, this one is just a great story that happens to be an homage to a favorite classic.** Aliza Bentaine lives with her sisters and her parents in a small town that is being […]

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5/23/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:33 |

“Hello,” it said.

The Unseen World by Liz Moore

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I’ve been sitting on my review of this one for a little while, not quite sure about what I want to say or how I want to say it. I do know that I’m so grateful for other reviewers like Fiat.Luxury, badkittyuno, and narfna for bringing it to my attention. I love when a book I knew nothing about, had never seen or heard about, suddenly jumps onto my radar when someone whose book opinions I trust talks about it. The Unseen World has a lot going on, but never feels overwhelming or too busy. It tells a lot of […]

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5/17/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:32 |

Part X-Files and part World War Z? Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

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My local bookstore is really great about making recommendations for books I may otherwise have never known about. (You may remember, this was how I discovered Andrew Smith’s Grasshopper Jungle.) There’s nothing better than popping by the store and checking out what’s new and which employees have left rave reviews for titles and authors I might enjoy. When I dropped by last Friday, I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular. But when I started to browse the SciFic/Fantasy section, I saw a book with a note attached that said “LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN THE X-FILES AND WORLD WAR Z (NOT THE […]

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5/15/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:31 |

A lovely, heartwarming story about first loves. And an amazing opening sentence about peeing mermaids.

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

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I’m joining in with the praise for Becky Albertalli’s follow-up to the great Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. And I’m adding Becky Albertalli to the YA Mount Rushmore, along with Rainbow, Andrew, and AS. She writes teens that seem like actual human beings, who talk like regular kids, and who make realistic mistakes. These kids are full of self-doubt and have families that embarrass them, but are also hopeful and fiercely loyal to those aforementioned embarrassing families. These kids could be living next door to me. These kids (without the CONSTANT social media aspect of their lives) could have been me […]

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5/10/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:30 |

This is why I still visit the YA section of my library.

Still Life with Tornado, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King

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There are very few writers — of any genre — that absolutely grasp how to write dialogue that an actual  human being would say. And I think its especially difficult when it comes to YA characters. Rainbow Rowell can do it. Andrew Smith can do it. And my god, AS King can do it, too. Years and years ago (for CBR3!!!), I read Please Ignore Vera Dietz, a book I still think about every once in a while. It was so different from anything else I had read in the world of YA, it really and truly stood out for me as groundbreaking. […]

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5/8/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:29 |

I feel like this was a massively missed opportunity to really open up some important discussions. But I don’t know how I would change it.

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

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Ok. So. I know this book has been talked about a lot lately, and that the Netflix show is getting a lot of attention — both positive and negative. The middle school sent a note home to all parents warning us about the intensity of the show, and that if our kids wanted to watch it that we should watch with them and then have a dialogue about what we saw. Fine. I know bunnybean’s friends have been watching, so I figured I’d see what all the fuss was about (even though she has zero interest, as she’s happily making […]

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4/27/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:27 |

I laughed, I cried, I considered buying a Saab.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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Sometimes a story is able to take you someplace else. But even better, sometimes you become so immersed in a particular fictional world, you don’t ever want to leave. That’s what happened to me when I listened to A Man Called Ove, the most recent pick from my new book club (and a huge step up from our first pick!!). Not only did I feel like I was right in Ove’s Swedish neighborhood, experiencing everything that happened in the book, but it made me want to know these people, to have them be a part of my actual life. I wanted […]

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4/22/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:26 |

I miss you, Secretariat.

In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper by Lawrence Block

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Two or three years ago, while we were on vacation in The Berkshires, we spent a day at the Norman Rockwell museum. It was great. We learned a ton about Rockwell and his life and walked around the gorgeous property where he painted. As an added bonus, there was a special exhibit on display, featuring all (or at least a lot) of Edward Hopper’s Cape Cod paintings. This was particularly eye-opening, as I really didn’t know much about Hopper other than that he painted Nighthawks. So, when I saw badkittyuno’s review of this collection of stories based on some of Hopper’s works, […]

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4/19/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:25 |

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