ElCicco – Page 37 – Cannonball Read 17

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin

April 21, 2022 by ElCicco 1 Comment

I remember hearing about this novel a few years ago and wanting to read it, then forgetting all about it until donttrustthe_bea reviewed it earlier this year. This winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize is set in contemporary South Korea, and through a plot involving a missing person, writer Kyung-Sook Shin examines a clash of generations and dreams dashed. Family is family whether in Korea or elsewhere, and the fact is, we don’t always understand our parents (and vice versa). Too late we regret […]

Let’s not go back there again

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

April 11, 2022 by ElCicco 3 Comments

Join us now through May 21 for the #CannonBookClub Discussion of Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a multi-award winning young adult novel that takes on several heavy topics and does so admirably. Set in early 1950’s San Francisco, the story’s protagonist Lily Hu is a teenager with big dreams. Yet she faces a number of formidable obstacles related to her race, sex and sexual identity. Through Lily, Malinda Lo shows the reader how dangerous it […]

“I’ll never be a footnote in someone else’s story. Everyone I meet is destined to be a footnote in my story.”

Dava Shastri’s Last Day: A Novel by Kirthana Ramisetti

March 17, 2022 by ElCicco 1 Comment

Dava Shastri’s Last Day is a fascinating novel with a provocative premise. Dava Shastri, age 70, is dying and decides to fake her own death so that she can see what the obituaries will say about her before she goes. You see, Dava Shastri is famous. She is one of the wealthiest women in the world, having made a name for herself in the music industry and as a philanthropist. She has been focused on her legacy for much of her life and expects to […]

A tale as old as time

The Women of Troy: A Novel by Pat Barker

March 9, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

The Women of Troy is the follow up to Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, her imagining of the Trojan War/Iliad from the point of view of the women and girls who saw their city fall and became enslaved to their enemies. The focal point remains Briseis, pregnant with Achilles’ child, with a few chapters from the view of Achilles’ teenaged son Pyrrhus. This novel finds its characters stuck in a sort of limbo; the war is over, the Greeks victorious but unable to […]

How a victim is made a villain

Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson

February 28, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Three years ago, I reviewed Tiffany D. Jackson’s YA novel Monday’s Not Coming. It’s one of those novels that stays with you long after you’ve read it due to the tragic subject matter and Jackson’s excellent writing. Grown, published in 2020, is another powerful YA novel that tackles disturbing subject matter taken from today’s headlines. This time, Jackson writes a story inspired by R. Kelly and the abuse of young Black girls at the hands of a powerful and famous man. This is not an […]

“Now he carried the past with him rather than being carried on the back of the brute that was his history.”

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

February 23, 2022 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

If you were beginning to sense the onset of dementia and had the chance to take a drug that would clear your mind for a short period of time but then cause your death, would you take it? Ninety-one-year-old Ptolemy Grey doesn’t hesitate when offered the chance because he knows he has something important he is supposed to do before he dies and needs to remember what it is. This short 2010 novel by Walter Mosley is a touching reflection on memory, history and what […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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