Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Solid Addition to the Baby-Sitters Graphic Novel Series

The Baby-Sitters Club: Stacey's Mistake by Ellen T. Crenshaw

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CBR15Bingo: Nostalgia (a nostalgic series updated for the modern day) I was excited to see this pop up in the bookstore as I’d missed there was a new one in the series coming out. I am a big fan of these graphic novel adaptations of the Baby-Sitters Club series, so it’s always a treat when they release another one. Stacey’s Mistake follows the group going to visit Stacey in New York City, as she moved back to the city for her dad’s job in a […]

“It’s like everyone else got instructions, but we didn’t.”

Tegan and Sara: Junior High by Tegan Quin, Sara Quin, and Tillie Walden

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CBR15Bingo: Bodies, Bodies (physically growing up, stressing about getting your period, wanting to differentiate yourself when you’re an identical twin — the first chapter is actually called “Teenage Bodies.”) I read this without ever having listened to any Tegan and Sara music and loved it, so this is clearly a winner. I am a huge Tillie Walden fan, which is why I picked this up in the first place, and I’m really glad I did. I think this book does a great job of being […]

All in…

The Family by Naomi Krupitsky

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This book has received a lot of comparisons to Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend and the other works in that series. Let me clarify: I’ve tried to read Ferrante multiple times and just can’t land with her writing. I don’t know what it is. It’s got nothing to do with my months-long slump; I can’t connect with it. So I’ve heard a lot of people dismiss The Family because it’s a comparison that doesn’t measure up for them. If you’re a big Ferrante fan, you should know that going […]

A great friend digs the empty grave up with you

Hell Phone Book One by Benji Nate

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I have read three of Benji Nate’s work and have three to go (one is due in May 2023, so just two current). And each one is more bizarre and kookier than the last. Yet, I keep reading. Maybe it is like a car wreck, you do not want to know, but you must know, too. You cannot look away. And Hell Phone Book One is no different. However, this time it does flow a bit more logically and has a base to it that […]

A road trip with a difference

Becoming Dinah by Kit de Waal

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Seventeen-year old Dinah has spent almost all her life on a religious commune somewhere in Northumberland (in northern England), being educated at home with the other children. Only recently has she gone to a ‘proper’ school, and her feelings of culture shock and confusion are convincingly drawn. When we first meet her, something awful has happened (which de Waal delays telling us about), and Dinah is taking advantage of her mother’s absence on a Women’s Retreat to reinvent herself as ‘Ishmael’, cutting off her long […]

once again: great book, TERRIBLE cover

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

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The cover is even WORSE this time- not only do we have another DIY looking illustration,  but the featured pull quote from The Australian‘s John Freeman is ABYSMAL: “Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you’ll have some idea of how explosive these works are.” Fuck right off, guy. Emphasis on GUY. Just because Austen characters aren’t slapping and cussing each other out does not mean that they aren’t also filled with the contained rage of being a woman trapped in position- a woman who will do […]



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