Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

So Many Tiny Hearts of Light

Victories Greater than Death by Charlie Jane Anders

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One of my most common anxiety dreams is having to do something I have already done well, but I can’t remember how I did it. I start off confident and everyone around me is confident and full of expectation. It slowly becomes clear that I don’t know what I’m doing. My panic grows as I feel everyone’s disappointment. Charlie Jane Anders turned my nightmare into the premise of a space adventure. Imagine that you grow up knowing you are the clone of an intergalactic leader […]

Be Yourself, The World Will Adjust

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

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This trans coming-of-age story was a great way to jumpstart my reading in 2021.  It is the story of Felix Love, an aspiring artist who dreams of attending Brown University.  He and his best friend, Ezra Patel, attend St. Catherine’s, a private New York high school.  While Ezra’s family is insanely wealthy, Felix is a scholarship student who now lives in Harlem with his dad, who works multiple jobs to help pay for the remaining costs of Felix’s education. Felix’s dad has been very supportive […]

Unsustainable human society hammered into the meridian of an alien planet

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

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January is a tide-locked planet, one side permanently cold dark night, one blinding searing day, with human colonists clinging to precarious life on the narrow boundary.  Outside of the human cities the monsters will kill you if the planet doesn’t get you first. Xiosphant is a socially rigid city state, forcing the endless twilight into an intricate regime of well-ordered citizens.  “Everyone in Xiosphant was weirdly polite, just so long as you pretended all their made-up stuff was real.” Sophie is a student from the […]

A Very Enby Christmas

Sugar & Spice by Eli Wray

The First Noel by Eli Wray

Secret Santa by Eli Wray

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A few weeks ago I started hearing positive reviews of a soft and low angst holiday series written by a non-binary author centering trans and non-binary characters. Eli Wray’s A Very Enby Christmas series came highly recommended and lived up to every positive word said about it. All three installments are packed with kindness. Sugar & Spice was kind of like “The Gift of the Magi”, except instead of sacrificing what they most hold dear to get the perfect material gift for the other, Mason […]

Just look at this beautiful cover. And the book inside is just as lovely.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

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This book was excellent. It fits comfortably in with other YA books in terms of subject matter and content, but it’s so well written it stands out from the pack and feels extremely original, like all things with specificity do. Callender’s protagonist Felix is a trans boy going to a summer art school in NY city, and basically living with his best friend in an apartment his best friend’s wealthy but neglecting parents provide for him. Felix’s mom left when he was little, which is […]

Wielding Hope Like a Sword

The Immortal City by May Peterson

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I think the most important thing for me to say up front is that KJ Charles also liked this book and if you won’t take my word for it, listen to KJ Charles. Please go buy it, or request it from your local library. I received this as an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’ve thought a lot about how to describe this treasure of a book. I keep coming up with movies for comparison. Imagine if Wim Wenders’ Wings of […]



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