Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Unfortunately, I am too firmly on Team Charles to really enjoy this…

Younger by Pamela Redmond Satran

Older by Pamela Redmond

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“How are you going to be come a brand-new person if you keep acting like your same old self?”   “That was an aspect of youth I didn’t think, no matter how good my makeup or my acting skills, I’d be able to reclaim: the belief that if you were smart or ambitious enough, you could make your life turn out exactly as you wanted.” Fresh from her divorce—40 Something Alice needs to rejoin the workforce. Twenty years of being a stay at home mom […]

Playing catsup

Several Short Sentences about Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich

Girl by Edna O'Brien

You'll Never Believe what Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

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Several Short Sentences about Writing – 4/5 Stars I find this small book to be a very clear, direct, and helpful book about writing. As a writing teacher, I find that students generally are unimpressed with the idea that the only way to learn how to write is to write, get feedback, work on writing and go from there. Students want a frame and format to plug in sentences and go from there. That’s not exactly true for students who are more natural in their […]

The Amount of Review Titles This Year Where I Say I Feel Apathetic: Well, Here’s Another, Folks!

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

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The amount of times while listening to this audiobook where I just thought to myself, “I really don’t care” was astounding. I hate to say that, because it’s sad when things that once interested you suddenly don’t anymore, but to be honest I didn’t even know that this book (the 3rd and final of the Simon Snow series) was out in the series until I noticed it on a library list. The whole thing just fell from my head and I never felt the absence.  […]

A few slow moments but overall worth pushing through

The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk

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BINGO – Free (picked up from my local library) Beatrice Clayborn must get married. She must. Getting married is the only way to save her family from financial ruin. But to get married means that she will have to give up her passion and goals: to become a great mage and the first female mage. Complicating her situation further is Ianthe Lavan, an extremely wealthy, handsome, compassionate man determined to win her hand in marriage, and his sister Ysbeta who wants the same things as […]

A new Alphabet

From Archie to Zack by Vincent Kirsch

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From Archie to Zack is a GLBTQ+ story and a sweet friendship story. You can say that Archie and Zack do have a crush on each other (as a description mentioned the joys of a first crush) or they are just dear, close friends, who care deeply for each other. This flexibility normalizes feelings and boys having them. It is also about acceptance as the whole school knows that the boys have this relationship. And when Zelda, Zinnia, and Zuzella find letters that Archie has […]

My feathered and not so feathered friends

Bird Boy by f Matthew Burges

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Bird Boy is marketed as an “Inclusive Children’s Book.” And while I am not sure what the criteria is for that, the results of Matthew Burgess and Shahrzad Maydani’s book is one that shows you how to be yourself and shows that we are all different but similar at the same time. We are rainbow colors, and maybe use wheelchairs or have glasses, but we can play, have fun, and enjoy nature, and be ourselves with our friends. What happens when you are a shy […]



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