Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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This wasn’t for me, but I am curious about the author

Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo

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Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo was a slow read for this reader. Also, it was nothing I had not read in other young adult novels, but for the modern reader starting out it is good. The prose poetry element reads as a novel and moves at its familiar novel pacing. I would have liked to have seen more of the narrator’s cultural background, but what is there is decent. You see, Bright Red Fruit is new if you are new to young adult literature, […]

“Sometimes it seems like writing is the only way I keep from hurting.”

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

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CBR14 Bingo: Verse (the whole book is written as poems) Xiomara and her brother Xavier (who Xiomara mostly refers to as Twin) are miracle babies, born late in life to their parents, who never believed they would have children. Growing up in Harlem, New York, they’re nevertheless part of the Dominican culture of their immigrant parents. Their mother is deeply religious and was possibly going to be a nun before she met their dad, whose wandering eye meant he got around plenty before marrying. While […]

“i am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness i cannot baptize myself in.”

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I have said many times that reading Poetry is not my jam. I have mostly gotten over my entrance issues with science fiction and graphic novels/comics but Poetry still trips me up from time to time. The funny part? I’ve been known to write it, but reading a collection can be too much, and I think that’s the real problem – a collection of poetry, of really good poetry is likely going to feel like too much. At times, Sabrina Benaim’s first published collection, Depression & […]

Something IS Okay….and this is it!

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WOW! WOW! WOW!  I seriously could write WOW 250 times and that would be my review. You will love some of these poems and hate others. And others still you will be WTF?!?!  Nothing is Okay by Rachel Wiley is one of those poetry books that you hope will be good after hearing one or two of her readings knowing that, yes of course, Facebook is going to highlight the “strong” poems, the “good” ones, the ones that will tease and make you drool for […]

Depression & Other Magic Tricks

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You know that a book is good when you highlight/mark something in the acknowledgements of the author. Depression & Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim is a collection of poems dealing with depression: thoughts, what she wishes others knew, conversations she had, the struggle and finally, the hope they have that they will be well someday. While the poem “Explaining My Depression to My Mother” has become the poem associated with Benaim it was her poem “On Releasing Light” that I got the “feelz” from. […]



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