Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“We’ll fly to freedom together one day.” — Moving and Important Portrayal of Escape from North Korea

The Other Side of Tomorrow by Tina Cho and Deb JJ Lee

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I’d been putting off reading this for a bit because I felt like it was going to be stressful, but as part of my effort to work through the piles sitting around my house, I finally picked it up again (I had started at one point last year and got about three pages in). I’m glad I did, as this was a good look at the horrific journeys that people escaping from North Korea must go through. This is like the graphic novel version of […]

“There’s no special name for events like these, and they’ll never win you a medal. But these ‘stupid things’ and this ‘wasted time’ help decorate the heart. It’s kind of like being able to pick up little pieces of happiness.”

You and I Are Polar Opposites (Volume 8) by Kocha Agasawa

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Spoilers follow throughout this review! I was sad to see that this was the last volume of this series; while I support not having stories go on past their prime, I feel like there was another three or so volumes left to fully flesh everything out. You and I Are Polar Opposites, as stated in my previous review, follows three pairings of high schoolers who have somewhat opposite personalities, with the understanding that, since this is shoujo manga, they’ll end up together. It’s also about […]

“He had been defying us all. Yet there was nobody in the court who did not look superior to him.”

Radio Treason: The Trials of Lord Haw-Haw, The British Voice of Nazi Germany by Rebecca West

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Radio Treason was originally a series of New Yorker dispatches from Rebecca West, covering the trial for treason of William Joyce, who was a radio propagandist for the Nazis nicknamed “Lord Haw-Haw.” This book is a reissue of these columns into one book, which is unfortunately and depressingly extremely of the moment. I had a lot of moments of recognition and sadness reading this as to how little things have changed in terms of the small minded and pathetic nature of Fascists. West details the trial and […]

“The town of Stony Lonesome spreads like scrambled eggs. It spills, runny, over the hot desert pan, but then heaps up all around you, making this place feel smaller than you thought.”

Gumshoe by Brenna Thummler

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I was unsure about this when I saw it in the bookstore, but I’m glad I gave it a chance because I ended up thinking it was quite good. Sometimes it’s good to push through my initial negative reaction! Gumshoe is a magical realist middle grade/YA graphic novel (definitely appropriate for middle schoolers, but it’s dense and complex enough that I think it’d be good for the YA reader as well) about Willa, who has intense social anxiety and wants more than anything to be […]

“When guests visit the shop and look at the pets we offer, they often see them as someone that, in a deep corner of their heart, they desperately yearn to see.”

Petshop of Horrors: Collectors's Edition (Volume 4) by Matsuri Akino

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This is the fourth volume of the Petshop of Horrors collectors edition, which I’m very happy to be re-collecting since for some mysterious reason I got rid of my Tokyopop editions at some point. When and why, I don’t know. Seven Seas has been doing a nice job putting these out in a nice large format and including the extras in the back (which were a bit thin this volume, but maybe that’s how they were originally? Some brief backstory to the chapters, a note from […]

Very Cute Middle Grade Fantasy Graphic Novel

My Sister the Werebeast by Alina Tysoe

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This is a very cute middle grade graphic novel that hits many of the themes I enjoy — school narrative, siblings having to work together, magic, and actually supportive adults so that the kids don’t have to do things all on their own. Mira and Rosie have been left to look after their little sister, Peanut, while their parents are off on an adventuring expedition. This is a world in which there used to be magic, but it supposedly vanished hundreds of years ago after […]



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