Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“Olive’s not a hundred dollar bill. There are going to be people in her life who don’t like her.”

Act by Kayla Miller

Clash by Kayla Miller

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I continue my slow acquisition of this series through random bookstore visits with Act and Clash. The series follows Olive as she learns various important lessons in middle school about friendship and standing up for what’s right. In Act, Olive finds out that some kids are unable to go on field trips because their parents can’t afford the extra cost. She decides to run for student council and this causes some turmoil in her friendships and requires her to learn how to get her message […]

You Will Feel Better If You Just Read the Darn Thing

Reckless by Ed Brubaker

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Sometimes, I just wait too long, sleeping on books, making excuse after excuse about why I won’t finally pick up something I’ve wanted to read for years. Who knows why I (and apparently other readers are) this way? There’s probably some psychological reason. Ed Brubaker’s Reckless series is right up my alley: a disaffected 70s domestic Cold Warrior doing odd crime jobs in the 80s? Yessir. I should’ve read this at my earliest possible convenience. But I prefer prose to graphics, liking to sink into […]

A Delightful Medley of the Finest New Middle Grade Graphic Novels

Freestyle by Gale Galligan

Growing Pains by Kathryn Ormsbee and Molly Brooks

The Baby-Sitters Club #12: Jessi's Secret Language by Chan Chau

Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega and Rose Bousamra

Tidesong by Wendy Xu

The Tryout by Christina Soontornvat and Joanna Cacao

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My love of middle grade graphic novels continues to deepen as more and more great books come out. Over the past week I read these six, which almost all came out recently (Tidesong came out in 2021). What really struck me about most of them is the wonderful diversity of viewpoints and experiences, which makes for a varied and rewarding reading experience. Hopefully as the generation of kids reading these grows up, we will see a similar boom in YA and adult graphic novels. Freestyle […]

The Magicless Hero who Muscles His Way Through, and we’ve seen it all before

Mashle: Magic and Muscles, vols. 1-2 by Hajime Komoto

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I think I saw an excerpt of Mashle: Magic and Muscles somewhere and decided it looked dumb. Then I decided to give it another chance when I was shelf-surfing in the library which turned out to have volumes 1-2. The premise of this manga series and most of the key characters so far are pretty recognizable. The hero Mash is a magicless idiot with only ridiculous strength to get by in a world where magic defines your status and prospects. To get his dad out […]

Read it just so I’d be prepped for the movie.

Eternals by Neil Gaiman

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I read this over two months ago now, and it didn’t make a strong impression on me at the time, so this review isn’t going to be based on anything really concrete. Just FYI. I’ve actually had this on my TBR forever, because Neil Gaiman, but the premise never grabbed me enough for me to actually do the (slight) work of picking it up. But the movie is coming out soon-ish, so I figured I’d give it a go. And it was fine! I liked […]

Does what it says on the tin!

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang

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This was good and I liked it, but I didn’t expect it to be so young-skewing. It’s definitely a middle grade book. Older teenagers and adults can read and enjoy it, but it’s not really an all-ages read. Aside from that, it was really well done. I went into this with no background, and it was a fun read that way, but I wish I would have read the historical context/afterword from Yang at the back of the book first. Better yet, I wish they […]



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