Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Personhood in Sci-Fi

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon

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Volatile Memory fulfills the “purple” square on CBR17 bingo. Generally speaking, I don’t consider myself a sci-fi reader, but Volatile Memory kept coming across my feeds because it’s sapphic and I finally gave into the promo, and I’m glad I did because this ended up being a really interesting story. I’d put it in the same conversations as books like Automatic Noodle and The Stars Too Fondly for the ways it explores transness and gender through presentation as well as whether memories make a person […]

Gettin’ some lovin’

Young Men in Love: New Romance by Various

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Young Men in Love: New Romance by Anthony Oliveira, Joe Glass, Matt Miner (these two are highlighted as they are the ones in the email that included an online reader link), Luciano Vecchio, Bradley Clayton, Ilias Kyriazis, David Brame, Josh Cornillon and various others, came to me via an email from A Wave Blue World and Diamond Book Distributors. The email itself (which I assume was sent via a mailing list) was from Jesse who has sent other emails for the books they rep. And […]

Frankenstein but plants and gay!

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock

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I saw a reel on Instagram from the author talking about this book, and I was immediately sold. Frankenstein? Queer? Messy, messy characters? Sign me up! And this absolutely delivers on all fronts. The beginning of A Botanical Daughter is a little slow, but it perfectly sets the scene of Grimfern, an estate inside a greenhouse outside the closest village, and the three main characters – Gregor, botanist and lord of Grimfern; Simon, taxidermist and romantic partner to Gregor; and Jenny, local village girl whose […]

Satisfying conclusion to the Last Binding Trilogy

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

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Freya Marske satisfyingly concludes her Last Binding Trilogy with A Power Unbound.  I loved the first volume, A Marvellous Light.  It has a creative magic system and adorable couple Robin and Edwin.  I found the second one, A Restless Truth, to feel a bit rushed due to the time limit on having to occur on an ocean voyage between the US and England.  Also, Maud as a character tends to make me feel breathless with her energy and constant pushing for action.  Though A Power Unbound […]

Fantastic witchy YA!

How to Succeed in Witchcraft by Aislinn Brophy

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I got an arc of Aislinn Brophy’s upcoming <u>Spells to Forget Us</u> so being me, I decided to read her debut first, and this was phenomenal. Shay is in her junior year and burning the candle at both ends in the hopes of wining the Brockton scholarship, a scholarship for her school that would pay for college tuition and basically ensures she’d be able to go to a licensing college. There is so much good commentary on access and privilege and the American dream through […]

Celebrating

Queer Heroes: Meet 53 LGBTQ Heroes From Past and Present! by Arabelle Sicardi

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Over 50 famous and maybe not as famous people of the GLBTQ+ community are in the pages of the book Queer Heroes: Meet 53 LGBTQ Heroes From Past and Present!  While I did not count, I would guess at least half or more of the people mentioned are not mainstream (but known in certain circles) or might be the first time the reader (and most) have heard of/about them. Of course there were several more well known (Freddie Mercury, Ellen DeGeneres, David Bowie (who never […]



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