Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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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:

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse

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It’s complicated to say that I loved reading this book – the experience was difficult because the subject matter is so heavy, and I often felt very frustrated, or sad, or just horrified at what humans are capable of while I was reading this book. But at its core, this is a book about an important subject told really well. For me, this book was a five-star read. Early in the book Krouse shares that she has the sort of face that leads people to […]

“The message is connection”

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

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I have heard the theory that the octopus is actually an alien species – something about their DNA, and their uniqueness in both the deep sea and really anywhere else on Earth. I have fallen asleep to the documentary My Octopus Teacher a few times (one of these days I’ll make it all the way through!). I generally believe that there’s likely to be another species out there, somewhere (whether galaxies away or hidden in the depths of our oceans) that has a similar intelligence to […]

Mirrors

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

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Technically, Recitatif is a short story – generously, it could be called a novella – but was released recently (I think) as a full book with an introduction by Zadie Smith, and so I’ll count it as a novel unto itself here. For the unfamiliar, this is a story where race is central to the plot – but never clarified. The story follows two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who were brought to room 406 at a sort of boarding school for children whose parents are unable […]

Real life horror, enhanced by spider demons

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

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Katsu is a master of reimagining real-life horror with supernatural elements. Am I allowed to call her a master after reading only two of her novels, the one I’m currently reviewing and The Hunger? I suppose that is what makes reviewing books on the internet so great, there are so few rules to all of this. Anyway, I really loved the atmospheric creepiness of The Hunger, and it’s suggestion, ala The Witch , of something more complex happening than the story we are told about cannibals in Donner Pass […]

This Boy’s Life

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

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CBR Passport – This book is set in Scotland, as was his previous novel, Shuggie Bain. That’s actually one of the many structural similarities between Stuart’s two novels – both are set in the council flats of Scotland, both are primarily narrated by a youn, gay Scottish boy with peculiar reactions to the world around him, an alcoholic mother and absent or dead father, and two elder siblings – a violent brother and a solid sister. However, the tone of this book is a good deal […]

Nothing she writes will be Life after Life for me

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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I loved Life After Life – I think it’s still in my top books, and I’ll keep recommending it (go ahead, find it at your library and enjoy it!). But everything else I’ve read of Atkinson has not reached that level of enjoyment for me. I think it’s that (unfair?) comparison that makes this book a little tough to review for me. This book is fine! It’s generally interesting and the writing is mostly good (although there I have some quibbles). But it lacks that something […]



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