Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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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 […]

“…if you’re gonna fail anyway, you might as well fail as your true self.”

Improve: How I Discovered Improv and Conquered Social Anxiety by Alex Graudins

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I love autobio comics so have been following Alex Graudins’ work for a few years and seeing her work on this book, so it was exciting that it is finally available in the world. I pre-ordered it but it got returned to B&N for some reason by USPS, so I bought it at an indie bookstore randomly yesterday and read it on the train home. I think since I really like her work, the idea of writing this review was hard because this book didn’t […]

“From that point of understanding, you begin to move on, no matter what.”

How to Be Ace by Rebecca Burgess

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This is another winner from Jessica Kingsley Publishers, which I’ve become increasingly aware of in the last year as a great specialty publisher. How to Be Ace is both a good coming of age memoir and a great primer of what asexuality is and how the social pressures to have sex and find a romantic partner can be very damaging. It also covers OCD, anxiety, and touches a bit on autism, so it manages to cover a lot of ground in 208 pages. I’d been following Burgess’s […]

“His skin neatly tailored over his bones:” A Great YA SF/F Novel

Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen

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I’m unable to be objective about this book since I’ve been reading it since childhood. I love it, it really is a perfect book to start a person onto sf/f. Dragon’s Blood follows Jakkin, who is an indentured servant at a dragon fighting stable. He’s an orphan whose father was killed when he was trying to train a feral dragon and whose mother died after they went into indentured servitude. The book blends science fiction and fantasy, as the dragon fighting happens on an alien planet […]

Go talk your weird love to the wind

Thirty Talks Weird Love by Alessandra Narvaez Varela

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When I first started to read Thirty Talks Weird Love my first thought was, “Well this is crap.” But I realized I was tired and told myself to go to bed. That is the main thing you need to know about Alessandra Narvaez Varela’s book: be rested. This book is an emotional rollercoaster and if you are the tiniest bit uncomfortable or not in a good headspace, do not try this book. The journey of finding and being perfection, and how we see ourselves are […]



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