Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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About booktrovert

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I'm a special education teacher by day and a reader by most other hours. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Booktrovert's Quick Questions interview.)

booktrovert's Reviews:

Who knows what one might be capable of

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

January 8, 2024 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

How’s that for an evocative cover? Spoiler alert: the entire novel is essentially as unsettling as that image. Our unnamed narrator moves into a house in a “northern country”. We know that she is Jewish, the youngest of many children, and from the first sentence we know that this book will take us to unusual places. Of course, there’s dead cows, piglets possibly murdered by their own mother, phantom dog pregnancies. But this book isn’t about the things that happen, at least not entirely. It’s […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Sarah Bernstein

booktrovert's CBR16 Review No:2 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Sarah Bernstein ·
· 0 Comments

Ancient beings, modern sensibility

Circe by Madeline Miller

January 3, 2024 by booktrovert 4 Comments

I loved Song of Achilles in a way that was surprising to me. Madeline Miller was suggested as an author who works well for someone who is interested in good writing with literary weight that feels a little lighter. Or, not exactly lighter (actually, when you start talking about gods and goddesses, things get quite dark pretty quickly) but something more plot driven, I suppose. I’m pretty late to these novels, which might mean that I’m enjoying them just in time for a new one […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: madeline miller

booktrovert's CBR16 Review No:1 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: madeline miller ·
Rating:
· 4 Comments

Call me corrupt, call me clean

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

December 10, 2023 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

Much has been written about Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s novel Chain-Gang All-Stars. Shortlisted for lots of prizes, probably ending up on many top ten end of year lists – this novel is a stunner for a reason. The story is timely and captivating, the stakes are high. It’s terrifying and beautiful. But before we talk about the story, I would like to heap praise on this author for the craft (I really struggled over this word – it isn’t QUITE what I mean but it’s close) […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

booktrovert's CBR15 Review No:57 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ·
· 0 Comments

Congratulations to the National Book Awards winner!

Blackouts by Justin Torres

November 24, 2023 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

This isn’t an easy book to describe (what a reassuring thing to hear from someone who’s about to describe a book to you!). As far as plot, it’s about a young man taking care of an older man who is dying. But this book defies anything as conventional as a plot – it’s not really about what happens, although it is about what happens. But it is also about the memories of what happens. Blackouts is an exploration of memory – our own personal memories, what we share together […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: justin torres

booktrovert's CBR15 Review No:56 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: justin torres ·
· 0 Comments

Twisty, Serial (the podcast)-style thriller

I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

November 14, 2023 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

Here is my first book of 2023 released in 2023 – and yet, with much of the action taking place in 2018, and 1995, it feels like an artifact of a different time altogether. At times, this reads like a Serial origin story. In 2018, Bodie Kane is invited back to Granby, a boarding school in New Hampshire that she attended in the early 1990s. Her graduating class was infamous for the deaths of three students – one of those students being her roommate, Thalia Keith. […]

Filed Under: Featured, Fiction Tagged With: Rebecca Makkai, Women's History Month

booktrovert's CBR15 Review No:22 · Genres: Featured, Fiction · Tags: Rebecca Makkai, Women's History Month ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Bantu Geometries and All-American Grief

Digging Stars by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison

November 12, 2023 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

Disney has an obsession with killing mothers, while it seems authors of literary fiction have a tendency to kill the narrator’s father. Maybe this is just my experience, because I’m especially sensitive to that plot line this year as I mourn my dad. It feels as though I have been surprised by several novels this year that include daughters grieving their fathers. Some have felt so close and personal, I couldn’t even begin to review them (I definitely should NOT have read Maame this summer). […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Tiffany Clarke Harrison

booktrovert's CBR15 Review No:55 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Tiffany Clarke Harrison ·
· 0 Comments
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