Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Putin Hates It

Pioneer Summer by Elena Malisova, Katerina Silvanova, and Anne O. Fisher

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DNF I was very excited to read this book after spotting it on the NEW table in a local bookstore. With the tagline, “Putin hates it,” how could I not be interested? Released as fan fiction and then formally published in Russia in 2021, this book became a sensation on Tiktok and gained widespread popularity with Russian-speaking readers. The Russian government took notice and, along with other popular books and content about LGBTQ characters and themes, banned it. The government claimed that it violated a […]

Even When I’m Leaving

Even When I'm Leaving by S.C. Meyer

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When she returns to her hometown for her dad’s funeral, Victoria (Vic) doesn’t expect to see her high school ex, Tony, much less be rescued by him from the side of the road when her ancient sedan breaks down just outside of the city limits. Through a series of flashbacks, Vic remembers the last summer she and Tony were together, the summer when their friendship turned to romance, and also the summer when Tony’s mother passed away from an aggressive form of cancer. Even though […]

Everyday Jewish Lives Divided by Time

Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World by Jane Ziegelman

Matzah Ball Blues by Jennifer Wilck

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I did not mean to make it a Jewish double feature, but I just happened to read these books around the same time, and it was interesting to see the same traditions discussed in a historical context and then in an average middle-class family from New Jersey. Once There Was a Town by Jane Ziegelman – 3 stars After the Holocaust, since entire shtetls had been reduced to just a handful of survivors, people across continents came together to put together yizkor books to record […]

I don’t know WHAT I think about this

Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection by Jamie Hernandez

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Learning of Jamie Hernandez via another book that had characters nicknames inspired by his work was I thought a neat way to learn about someone. It was an important, but also a  smaller piece of that bigger puzzle. Therefore, I wanted to see what the fuss was all about and why did Hernandez inspire this other author? Because of that, several interlibrary loan requests for books were placed for me. I received Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection first. This is a bizarre book. […]

The new familar

The Princess and the Grain of Rice by Tina Cho

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When I first started working at the bookstore, I decided I was going to collect Cinderella stories from around the world. I found so many I had to stop. There were just too many. Then I decided that I would read as many fairy tales as I could and only collect the ones that really hit the spot.  And what book hits a spot better than a Princess and the Pea story? Or more accurately  The Princess and the Grain of Rice. However, this time […]

Black womxnhood

Wash by Ebony Stewart

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Though available, I read via an online reader copy. I did not read all of the poems by Ebony Stewart in their collection Wash. This is because it is difficult to read poetry online for me and second, they were terribly intense and it was not something I really needed to immerse myself in at the time. However, I will find a finshed copy and just sit and read. Stewart has a passionate voice that needs to be slowly enjoyed. And I hope this does […]



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