Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A Great Collection of Autobio Comics!

Little Tunny's Snail Diaries by Grace Gogarty

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I really love Grace Gogarty’s work and so was thrilled when I saw this collection of autobio comics available for preorder. I hopped right on that and then forgot about it until I got the shipping notice, which was another delightful surprise. I am fully on board with using book preorders as a little gift for myself in the future, it cheers up a rough day. Little Tunny’s Snail Diaries collects a variety of Gogarty’s autobio comics in a really nice edition. The format mimics […]

Two Very Different But Sweet Autobiographical Manga

The Bride Was A Boy by Chii

Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito

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The breadth of non-fiction manga is on full display between these two very different books! The Bride was a Boy is a memoir about a trans woman’s experience falling in love and getting married. It’s also a basic primer on what being transgender is like  and a good overview on the Japanese government’s policies on trans people. I know there are enormous problems in the US right now vis a vis trans rights, which terrifies me every day as a trans person, but I’m always glad we […]

Two books that I think would be great for young readers but I have personal mixed feelings about

Stepping Stones by Lucy Knisley

Apple Crush by Lucy Knisley

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Stepping Stones and Apple Crush are middle-grade graphic novels that follow Jen, a city girl whose parents have gotten divorced. Stepping Stones covers the immediate aftermath of Jen’s mom moving them to a farm in the country with her new boyfriend Walter. Jen has to learn how to get along with her new step-sisters, especially Andy, who is bossy and a know-it-all. The conflict between Jen, who is struggling with math, and Jen, who is using her good grades to try to be perfect for her dad, […]

Some light can only be seen in the dark

Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o and Vashti Harrison

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Sulwe is the colour of midnight. Her mama is the colour of dawn, her father the colour of dusk and her little sister is the colour of high noon. Sulwe has darker skin than anyone in her family and pretty much everyone at school. While her little sister is given positive nicknames like ‘ray’ and ‘sunshine’, Sulwe is called ‘darkie’ and ‘night’. This is obviously deeply hurtful to the little girl, who remains withdrawn and friendless. Sulwe tries a number of things to lighten her […]

A book about how books can show you who you are

Turning Pages: My Life Story by Sonia Sotomayor

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My two biggest dislikes of biographies/autobiographies are, first the author just blindly praises the subject/themselves. But then again, why write a biography if you do not like the subject or you do not want to promote yourself? Yet, we should know our heroes have flaws and we should show our flaws to readers. The second is about women biographies/autobiographies. Unpopular opinion here: I am tired of them. Or I should say, I am tired of the same ones over and over. I am tired of […]

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

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While I already knew of Alison Bechdel and had some idea of the what her first graphic novel is about, I genuinely wasn’t prepared for how much Fun Home would affect me emotionally. It was a roller coaster of feelings, beautifully told and illustrated. Bechdel is only slightly older than I am, so her memoir of growing up in the 70s and 80s had some very familiar echoes. Though our families were dysfunctional in completely different ways, the family dynamics, cultural and social norms which she describes in Fun Home very […]



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