Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Rainbow Rowell may have ruined me, but I’m not mad

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

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Last year was really the first time I read any YA books as an adult, aside from the first Harry Potter book my dad bought me for Christmas twenty years ago. Maybe I’ve just had a string of bad luck. Maybe I’m too much of a literary fiction snob (GAC) to get the same kind of enjoyment out of YA. Or maybe Rainbow Rowell, and to a lesser degree, Becky Albertalli, spoiled me for everyone else since their books resonated so deeply with me. I hoped Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End might break my losing streak, considering […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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3/30/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:19 |

Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

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This won’t be a long review. I don’t have anything substantive to add to what’s already been written and said about Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to say anything at all. As a middle-aged, middle-class white guy from the very white Deep Midwest, I’m several degrees of separation from this book’s intended audience, but that’s exactly why it’s an important read for people like me. Starr lives in a rough neighborhood where everyone knows her because she works at her dad’s store. She also attends high school in a wealthy suburb […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong"

2/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:7 |

And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside of him. Something always did.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

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CBR10Bingo: Home Sweet Home Growing up in Nebraska, Willa Cather was required reading. I loved loved loved My Ántonia in junior high, but I soured on her after reading O Pioneers! and hating the bummer of a preachy ending. When I first saw the Home Sweet Home square, I thought I might have to give one of her other books a try until I remembered I have a new favorite Nebraska author, thanks to CBR: Rainbow Rowell!  Eleanor & Park went right to my wishlist after I read Fangirl and Carry On this spring, and though I wouldn’t have minded […]

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10/2/2018 's CBR10 Review No:54 |

Pobody’s nerfect?

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

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CBR10Bingo: Cannonballer Says I’ve tried to branch out more into other genres and new authors with my reading this year, and some of the bigger gaps in my library include YA and lesbian lit. Just my luck, then, that MrsLangdonAlger posted a review for not one but two YA coming out novels with female protagonists: Ask the Passengers by A.S. King and It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura. I’ve had an eye out for both books for a few months now, finally picking up Ask the Passengers a few weeks ago at one of my favorite places […]

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8/13/2018 's CBR10 Review No:45 |

This book wasn’t written for me, and I feel fine

Dreadnought by April Daniels

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Roger Ebert used to talk about how important emotional response was to him as a critic, often more important than the technical and artistic merits. Even the most technically and artistically exquisite film could be a hollow and unsatisfying experience if he didn’t connect emotionally, and the opposite could also be true: sometimes, without any other explanation, a seeming piece of trash could be surprisingly fun simply because it connected to something ineffable inside him. So when the whole “Brie Larson commits white genocide against Old White Men” was a thing for a hot minute last month, I got what […]

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7/12/2018 's CBR10 Review No:38 |

Lies, love, and facing reality

Lies We Tell Ourseves by Robin Talley

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It’s Juneteenth, which makes an incredibly appropriate day to review Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley. This book was on my radar since it first came out in 2014, but it took a wee bit of time to actually find time to read it. (Seriously, on this site, I know I’m not the only one who’s reading list is longer than the time I’ll ever possibly have to read over the course of my entire life…) What first drew me in was that the book was about desegregation and I knew there was likely going to be a romantic […]

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6/19/2018 's CBR10 Review No:6 |

YA Lesbian and Trans Love From All The Angles

grl2grl by Julie Anne Peters

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I’d been wanting to read this compilation of lesbian YA short stores from Julie Anne Peters for a few years and so I was very excited when I discovered a copy in my country library collection. As a fan of Peters for a while, since I love how she draws me into believable worlds of lesbian and trans teen characters with humor, warmth, and great writing, this book didn’t disappoint. In fact, it went beyond my expectations in terms of variety. Without going into spoilers on specific stories, it covers the fear of coming out and going to a Gay/Straight […]

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6/18/2018 's CBR10 Review No:5 |

Good ole Nebraska U

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

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This book took me completely by surprise. I mean, of course I knew I’d like it, since Rainbow Rowell is a favorite around these parts, but I had no idea it would hit so close to home. I added Fangirl to my wishlist along with a whole mess of other books at the beginning of my push to even out the male-female author ratio in my library. I knew the basic premise of the book but nothing about the author besides her gender, so when the first page included three very clear references to my alma mater, the University of […]

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5/8/2018 's CBR10 Review No:25 |


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