Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“Maybe I still haven’t become me. I don’t know how you tell for sure when you finally have.”

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

by Leave a Comment

This is one of those books I can appreciate more intellectually than feel in my gut, though I think I’m going to chalk that up more to the style than anything else. I wasn’t in the mood for a slow, thoughtful, book that is more traditionally literary in style than I usually prefer. This book is LONG as well, almost 500 pages. Which is on the high end for contemporary YA. Aside from my own style preferences, I have no complaints. It’s a beautifully written […]

true story: my parents were called in for a meeting with the guidance counselor when I wrote a poem about bog sacrifices in third grade

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

by Leave a Comment

…which I learned about from reading Spider magazine. Ghost Wall kicks off with a young woman being led to the peaty gloom before snapping back to a modern teenager forced to reenact the Iron Age with her father and the massive chip on his shoulder. Clocking in at a mere 130 pages, Ghost Wall bridges the expanse from ancient Britons to bored college students. Sarah Moss’s prose is sparse but lush; months worth of meditations shift and shimmer through the fog of just 130 pages.   A theme reigns supreme throughout […]

Five stars with some qualifications for this White Whale book.

It by Stephen King

by 14 Comments

Well, I did it. I did It. (I’m sure this is adding so much to the ongoing pun-based conversation surrounding this book.) I started this book on January 22nd, and finished it on January 30th. That is a long time to read a book for me, especially at the beginning of the year, when I like to get my momentum up and running with shorter, exciting books. But I’m doing the whole TBR Jar thing this year, and I pulled It out almost immediately. When […]

Poetic feels

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

by Leave a Comment

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is a coming of age story written in poetic verse. Xiomara Batista attends Catholic high school and forced by her mom to attend catechism classes. Her mom has a very strict idea of what her daughter should be. Boys are definitely off limits. Thus, she pours all her teenage angst into her prized notebook. Also lots of feelings about her classmate named Aman. It’s only when she joins the poetry club does she begin to find her voice. Unfortunately, she […]

#CBR10Bingo: Home, Something, Home (double Bingo!)

by Leave a Comment

#CBR10Bingo: Home, Something, Home (this book is set at Stovner in Oslo, three stops away from where I live on the metro. It also concerns exactly the sort of pupils that I teach.) Two youths, both living in the same tower block in a suburb on the east side of Oslo, in Stovner (where the large majority of inhabitants are immigrants or the children of immigrants). They start out going to the same high school. Starting in the year 2000, the framing device consists of these […]

#CBR10Bingo: Snubbed – This One Summer (Bingo nr 4)

by 2 Comments

#CBR10Bingo: Snubbed- it won the Eisner Award in 2015, but was also nominated for a whole host of other things that it lost out on. Every summer Rose and her parents go to Arwago Beach. They have their set rituals and it’s Rose’s favourite time of the year. Her friend Windy is also there, and she and Rose are inseparable all summer. Something is different this year, though. There’s a tension between Rose’s parents and they keep fighting when they think Rose can’t hear them. For […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo