Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“And it wasn’t fair. That was the thing that was at the heart of my reluctance and my resentment. Some people make it out of their stories unscathed, thriving. Some people don’t.”

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

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In one word: Grieving Cannonball Read Bingo: Uncannon I picked this for uncannon because Gyasi is giving new life to a story that we’ve seen many times over from the Eurocentric white perspective. There have been plenty of books about drug addiction (even specifically about Oxycontin and the havoc it is wreaking in America), mental illness, the crossroads of science and religion in academia, and an overachieving character trying to fix her heart by using her head. She is taking very familiar tropes and given […]

Two Touching Stories

Typewriter by Yevgenia Nayberg

No Ordinary Jacket by Sue-Ellen Pashley

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Once upon a time a typewriter proudly typed for its Russian author. It had the Cyrillic keyboard, that tapped out story after story. But when the author comes to America, the typewriter is used less. That is, until a new owner finds it and has it ring out again. Typewriter by Yevgenia Nayberg, is a different story. Typewriter is, as advertised, about a typewriter. While we tend not to see something like this today, the book is set in a contemporary setting. There is some […]

A tough read about tough topics…but oh so lovely.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

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“In each picture, Claude seemed to be shrinking. He had a big family, yes, so it was hard to fit everyone on the page, and he was the littlest of them, true, but Claude got smaller and smaller.” Penn and Rosie always wanted a daughter. But as life would have it—they had five sons. But one night their youngest, Claude informs them that he’d like to be a little girl when he grows up. While their son is advanced, particularly in his vocabulary, they still […]

A Totally Biased Review

Giving Back by Edward A. Joseph

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CBR Bingo: Home. In which I return home and find my father. Giving Back was written by my father, Edward Joseph. It’s a series of essays that he’s written and published over the years about family, memories, moments of human connection and advice for living. It’s a great book and I’m so proud of him. The way my father came into writing is intricately tied to my own story. I had been living in San Francisco but returned to my home city in New York […]

“You know who that bird reminds me of? You.” Her expression changed, and he didn’t know what he’d said wrong. Then he saw that the change was caused by Dicey trying to hold back laughter. “I was thinking how much it was like you.”

A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt

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In One Word: Redemptive Cannonball Read Bingo Square: Old Series So far, Jeff is a boy at school, who plays guitar and sings and has begrudgingly caught Dicey’s eye. This book takes us back in time in Jeff’s story, and we learn how he and his father came to live in Crisfield. It was a really interesting take on the series, to focus on Jeff (who we just met in the second book, and has so far been of periphery interest to Dicey the main […]

I might have wanted to go to this camp if I known there would be cool kids like Willow and her friends

Secrets of Camp Whatever Volume One by Chris Grine

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An adorable coming of age with lots of humor story is the best way to describe Secrets of Camp Whatever Volume One. Monsters, adventures, and snacks come together when a handful of children go to a bit of a creepy, but cool, summer camp. Adventure awaits! Just watch out for fog leeches. Chris Grine created characters that are relatable, diverse, and are full of surprises. Willow, our main character, and her friends are sent to a summer camp for a few weeks. Willow does not […]



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