Cannonball Read 16

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“Maybe all I need is a purpose.”

Singing With Elephants by Margarita Engle

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11-year-old Oriol wants to go back to Cuba. Ever since her grandmother died, she’s felt lost at her Santa Barbara, CA home. School is difficult, her older sister has less time for her since she got a boyfriend, and the only place she is truly happy is helping her parents at their veterinarian clinic. This clinic is no ordinary vet: her parents are specialty vets, assisting with wild and unique animals. In a show-biz state like California, they have a lot of work. One day, […]

Grief As A Creative Force

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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I honestly don’t remember where I first heard about this book – Instagram? One of the dozens of bookish emails I seem to get every single day? Maybe just scrolling through the Libby app? However it came into my life, I am really glad it did. This one is about Magos and Joseph and their son, Santiago, who has just died when the book opens. He was born with only one lung, and after his body finally gives out, Magos, in her grief, removes a […]

“The earth has turned. The time is here. I am dying. Come and collect your inheritance.”

The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova

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I tell you what, I’ve really been putting off writing this review. I just don’t want to try and put words to the subconscious magic this book can work upon a reader. And also the literal magic that is in the book. (An old woman turns into a tree! Flowers grow out of people’s bodies!) I’m really not going to talk much about the plot here because it’s way better to be surprised, but I will say that the book starts out with all of […]

is it too late to change your ways?

L.A. Weather by Maria Amparo Escandon

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I’ve got high expectations for novels set in Southern California. If very little besides, say, the beaches and Hollywood register for the writer in question, maybe also some smog and traffic, I judge that hard. If you can’t say “I’d take the 101 to the 10 to the 405 for you” and understand that as an expression of love, write about somewhere else, please. So one thing I liked very immediately about Maria Amparo Escandon’s L.A. Weather was the real sense of place. This isn’t just LA, […]

Adventures in ghost hunting

Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega

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I read Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega for our Young at Heart Cannon book club. I am so glad this book came into my life. 2022 has been plagued with a few reading slumps from the pandemic. However, this middle-grade book got me back into the groove. I read the audiobook, which I highly recommend. The supernatural mystery follows two friends, Lucely and Syd, who live in St. Augustine, Florida. Lucely is Dominican-American and can see her ghost relatives. She speaks to their spirits […]

A Breath of Fresh, Fierce, Queer Air

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

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From the first time I heard author Gabby Rivera’s laugh and her description of her book on Brene Brown’s podcast “Unlocking Us”, I knew I had to read Rivera’s debut novel “Juliet Takes a Breath”. After a mix-up at the local bookshop where I ordered it from was cleared up (they handed me the graphic novel and not the hardcover I ordered – and I have nothing against graphic novels, I just wanted to read all of her words first), I went home and devoured […]



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