Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“Normal is a terrible thing to aspire to,” Patrick had said. “Aim higher.”

The Guncle (The Guncle #1) by Steven Rowley

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This was the monthly library selection for my local library book club, I hadn’t heard of it, but was excited to read it because a LOT of our content this year has been HEAVY including women feet binding, mental illness, racism (actually THREE books where racism/discrimination was a central theme) and mortality. Now that I think about it, um, Schaumburg Library you doing okay? But I digress. I hung a lot of hopes on this book for some lightness and laughs and it delivered. It […]

An Important Middle Grade in Verse

Please Pay Attention by Jamie Sumner

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Gosh, Please Pay Attention is a book that hurts in the best way. Bea is a sixth-grader with cerebral palsy who is Buddies with Josie, a kindergartner with anxiety, and best friends with Rani. Max is the school nurse, and also her foster mom who gave her her name because Bea’s neonatal room was decorated with Peter Rabbit before Max brought her home. Bea loves to draw and even gets in trouble for drawing places she shouldn’t, like her bedroom wall and classroom desk. But […]

A warm squishy hug!

Nav’s Foolproof Guide to Falling in Love by Jessica Lewis

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[Nav’s Foolproof Guide releases April 29, 2025] I’ve been following Jessica Lewis’ books since her debut, and I was so excited to see what she’d do with a romance. Suffice to say I was not disappointed! Nav’s Foolproof Guide to Falling in Love feels like a warm squishy hug and builds the tension between Nav and Gia so wonderfully. Nav doesn’t believe in love, especially not anything lasting after her mom left “for space” three years earlier, but her best friend Hallie loves to fall […]

“I am forty four and I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent

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When Sally catapults to national attention for putting her adoptive father’s body out with the trash, little does she know that this is not the first time she’s been in the headlines. I don’t read a lot of suspense, but after seeing this book all over my Goodreads feed the last couple of years I was sufficiently intrigued. That’s a pretty startling image to start off with, one’s father in the trash! Nugent creates a fascinating dual character study following Sally and Peter, and I […]

For Everything There is a Season

Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

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Hounded by fairweather friends after winning the lottery, Opal impulsively buys a flower farm amid cottagecore visions of opening her own studio. But there is already someone living at the Thistle and Bloom – thorny farmer Pepper, who has no clue that her home has been sold out from under her, and is certainly not happy to learn about it. Firstly, take a good look at that cover. It is so pretty that I returned to it multiple times over the course of reading this […]

“You can’t legally brag about your son since you named him “Carl”.”

I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue

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Jolene copes with her soul-sucking job by pretending to be invisible and ranting at her coworkers in emails in white text. But when she’s found out, she’s sentenced to anti-harassment training with the cute new HR rep and restrictions on her computer – except it turns out that she’s accidentally been given access to the emails of every single of her coworkers instead. Often funny and often sad and very much filled with petty office politics which verge just on unbelievable sometimes. Jolene is a […]



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