Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About ElCicco

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Married, mom of two, history PhD, feminist. I've been participating in Cannonball Read since CBR4. I love to read, and writing reviews keeps me from reading without thinking. I feel like I owe it to the authors who entertain me to savor their creations. It's like slowing down and enjoying a delicious meal instead of bolting your food. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: ElCicco's Quick Questions interview.)

ElCicco's Reviews:

“Unfollow” taken to the extreme!

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

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Cbr15bingo Take the Skies/Take Flight — entire story is set on a train trip This might turn out to be the weirdest book I read all year. I’m not sure I even understand exactly what happened, and the meaning(s) of this tale are probably deeper and more complex than my poor brain can fathom, but I did find it very interesting and hard to put down. I’ve read a couple of Helen Oyeyemi’s other books and thought they were excellent. She has a talent for […]

“It isn’t just taking a life that destroys a people. It’s taking their history.”

Thistlefoot: A Novel by GennaRose Nethercott

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Cbr15bingo In the wild (shifters) features characters that are shape shifters Thistlefoot is a story of generational trauma that is part fairy tale and part history. The fairy tale part borrows from the Russian tales of the witch Baba Yaga. The history is that of the Jewish people, specifically the pogroms that occurred in Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century. This is a novel about the violence that destroyed Jewish communities, the fear that feeds that violence, and the vital importance […]

“Spending time in these worlds is my happy place. The problems arise when it’s time to leave…”

It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth: An auto-bio-graphic-novel by Zoe Thorogood

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Cbr15bingo Bodies, Bodies Writer/illustrator Thorogood depicts herself in a variety of different bodies in this book, and her depression takes the form of a monster that follows her around Zoe Thorogood was nominated for 5 Eisner Awards this year for her work on both Joe Hill’s Rain and her own book It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth. Thorogood is a gifted comic book artist, but It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth shows that she is also a talented writer. It’s Lonely […]

What’s in a name?

The Swifts A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln

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Cbr15bingo Dwelling, illustrations by Claire Powell This is a really fun work of kids lit (ages 8-12) that involves a murder mystery set in a very old ancestral home. Swift manor is a house full of secret passages and rooms, a place that has evolved over time along with the highly unusual Swift family. Each member of the family, at birth, is given a name chosen at random from the family Dictionary. Names seem to turn out to be strangely fitting for each member; is […]

“Honor without intelligence is a disaster. Honor could lose the war.”

The Killer Angels: A Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara

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Cbr13bingo violence I read The Killer Angels about 20 years ago, and my lasting recollection was that I was surprised at how it drew me in and how much I liked it. Surprised because this novel, a work of historical fiction, is focused on the most momentous battle of the Civil War – Gettysburg. As much as I enjoy history and historical fiction, military history has never been terribly interesting to me. Michael Shaara accomplished something amazing with this novel: he made me interested in […]

Never Forget

Maus A Survivor’s Tale Vol. I: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Maus A Survivor’s Tale Vol II: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

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Cbr15bingo history Maus is a highly acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning (1992) 2-volume graphic novel that made the news last year as the subject of a book banning in Tennessee (for bad words and a naked female mouse. Really.) Maus is about the Holocaust. Writer/illustrator Art Spiegelman interviewed his own father about what happened to him and their family in Poland during WWII. The Spiegelman family, like so many other Jewish families, was practically wiped out due to Nazi Germany’s extermination camps. In writing about this, […]



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