Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Interestingly written biography

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi

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CBR 16 Bingo – Celestial: The book is based around a continuous metaphor of Octavia Butler being from the stars or generally connected to them. A couple of years ago, I got the opportunity to go to the Walter Dean Myers awards, and this was one of the runners-up. I probably wouldn’t have picked it up otherwise, especially since I haven’t read any of Octavia Butler’s works, but I got it and it seemed like a good fit for Bingo this year, so I finally […]

Ranging from Excellent to Mediocre

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

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None of these books fit into my reviewing theme this year (revisiting series I’d never finished), but I wanted to review Clap When You Land anyway because it is excellent, and I decided to throw the other three in as a bonus. Clap When You Land: 5 stars. Plot: Camino lives in the Dominican Republic with her Tia and sees her father every summer, when he comes back from New York City to visit. When his plan tragically crashes and everyone aboard dies, she discovers […]

YA “Remixed” Pride and Prejudice

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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This is the first year 8th grade in my district is doing lit circles, at least since I have been here. They had 5 books to  choose from and I had already read 1 and read the rest over the summer. Despite my love of Pride and Prejudice this was the book I hadn’t got to yet and I finished it right before lit circles started. Pride is modern retelling (or remix as the cover states) of Pride and Prejudice by Ibi Zoboi that puts […]

Can you say Gentrification, Boys and Girls?

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up. But it’s not just the junky stuff they’ll get rid of. People can be thrown away too, like last night’s trash left out on sidewalks or pushed to the edge of wherever all broken things go.  What those rich people don’t always know is that broken and forgotten neighborhoods […]

“We’re not gonna throw away the past as if it meant nothing.”

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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Bingo Square: Remix This is an update/remix of Pride and Prejudice. Set in present day Brooklyn, its focus this time is the Benitez sisters, and is narrated by second child, Zuri. She is strong-willed and loves her family fiercely, especially her older sister, Janae, who is coming home from university for the summer. But a new family has moved in across the street and they take Janae’s attention – especially older brother Ainsley. But it’s Darius, the seemingly judgemental and arrogant younger brother who gets […]

“We don’t know the people who live across the street or on either side of us.”

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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cbr11bingo – Remix!  Zuri Benitez is of the rambling Benitez family. They live in Brooklyn – in Bushwick – in a one bedroom apartment where she and her four siblings share the living room as their bedroom, where block parties are regular and boisterous, and where she and her family and the neighborhood take care of each other. This is why Zuri views the new family across the street with suspicion. When a developer bought the property and revamped it into a flashy new home, […]



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