Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


In this game of life, your family is the court and your ball is your heart.

Crossover by Kwame Alexander

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This gem was given to me by Black Raven through last year’s CBR holiday book exchange. Most likely, I would have never come across this book on my own, so a big thanks to Black Raven. It took me almost a year to crack it open but it was probably one of the best books that I read all year. Not to continue to beat the same sad drum, but I have had a hard time reading this year. I know that I am not […]

CBR Bookmas: the most wonderful time of year.

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Hello, my friends. I declared review amnesty in 2019 and subsequently had to do the same in 2020. My doctor diagnosed me with anxiety in February, a mere month before my state issued its stay-at-home order, and I’ve been teaching my college classes remotely since March. I have done a LOT of reading, but have had precious little energy to put words together beyond emails to students. Here’s hoping 2021 is better. On a cheerier note, I love the CBR Book Exchange and had to […]

Can you say Gentrification, Boys and Girls?

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up. But it’s not just the junky stuff they’ll get rid of. People can be thrown away too, like last night’s trash left out on sidewalks or pushed to the edge of wherever all broken things go.  What those rich people don’t always know is that broken and forgotten neighborhoods […]

Everyone Needs Their Own Group of Corgis

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

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This novel is one of the books that I received from Bonnie for the Cannonball Read Book Exchange.  One thing to know is that I had the hard cover copy of the book checked out from my community college library (which has an amazing collection of new fiction with few folks on the waitlist) for an embarrassingly long time—since maybe July (just kept renewing it . . .). Just when I was starting to get threatening e-mails from circulation mentioned the replacement cost of the […]

Thanks scootsa1000!

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Thank you, scootsa1000, for my fantastic books!  I’m a slacker and didn’t post this until now, but I received this right after Thanksgiving (from a fellow Black Friday shopper, I see!)  I try to put books on my wish list that I don’t think we have in my library (although looking now, we have both of these in somewhere in the system!)  I heard about Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky from reviews here (was it Blingle Bells, or ClaireBadger, or Bea Pants? I can’t […]

Thank you, crystalclear!!!

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My book exchange buddy got me two things I’ve never heard of, but I’m so excited to add them to my TBR list! Thank you so much, crystalclear! I can’t wait to investigate this story of haunted palaces and lesbian necromancers (Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir), and super-students on their first mission (Aurora Rising, Amie Kaufman). Looking forward to them both!



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