Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Revisiting Persepolis

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

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There’s a point in Persepolis where Marjane says she’s too Western for Iran and too Iranian for the West. Re-reading this graphic novel with an extra decade of life and a deeper understanding of what makes the West the “West” and how we ‘other’ cultures different from our own, brings me to a more challenging conclusion. Satrapi’s tale is ‘More Western’ than Iranian.   That’s not a criticism nor a reduction of the rich cultural heritage that runs through this book. It exists as her […]

“Sometimes it seems like writing is the only way I keep from hurting.”

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

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CBR14 Bingo: Verse (the whole book is written as poems) Xiomara and her brother Xavier (who Xiomara mostly refers to as Twin) are miracle babies, born late in life to their parents, who never believed they would have children. Growing up in Harlem, New York, they’re nevertheless part of the Dominican culture of their immigrant parents. Their mother is deeply religious and was possibly going to be a nun before she met their dad, whose wandering eye meant he got around plenty before marrying. While […]

Growing up brown in Norway is no picnic

Hør Her'a! (Listen here!) by Gulraiz Sharif

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CBR13 Bingo: Free (borrowed at the library) Official book description (translated by me): It is summer vacation and fifteen-year-old Mahmoud is imagining long days on the bench outside his building with his friend, one-eyed Arif. This summer will be different, however, because the family is getting a visit from Uncle-ji from Pakistan and Mahmoud’s job will be to show his uncle around. Uncle-ji is very surprised at what he sees in Norway, and what is going on with Ali, Mahmoud’s little brother, who is not […]

lovely, stinking, brutal, sunburned, magical, and filthy.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

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Jacob de Zoet is a young man of meager means. He has hitched his hopes to the Dust East India Company- he’ll spend several trading seasons on Dejima- about as far away from home and his fiancée as he can physically be. What is Dejima? Why, I’m glad you asked! The year is 1799, and Japan is very strict in regards to foreign interference and influence. Following disasters interactions with the Spanish and Portuguese decades earlier, Japan is a closed empire. Dejima, a man-made island […]

Sadly, one of my biggest disappointments of the year

Gul book (Yellow Book) by Zeshan Shakar

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Official book description (any errors in translation are mine): Mani is a newly graduated economist and has just secured a job at the Ministry of Education and Research. He is a young man who lives with his father in a flat at Haugenstua, in the east of Oslo, and has a girlfriend he thinks he’s going to marry someday. Preferably, he’d like to use his abilities in the private sector, where the prestige and the money lies, because he’s painfully aware that both his girlfriend […]

A very sweet YA romance with queer characters

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan

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#CBR11 Bingo: Rainbow Flag (author is a lesbian, as is the main character) This book would also fit nicely into the “Youths!” and “Own voices” squares on the bingo card. Official book description: Leila has made it most of the way through high school without having a crush on anyone, which comes as something of a relief. Her Persian heritage makes her different enough; if word got out that Leila liked girls, life would be twice as hard. And what would her parents think? It’s bad […]



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