Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About drmllz

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I'm a literature and media studies lecturer and researcher at a university on the south coast of England (my reviews are absolutely not meant to be taken in my professional capacity nor reflect the views of my institution). I've participated in some early CBRs and then came back for CBR 14 onwards. Much like every year, I'd like to do more reading for fun, especially of contemporary fiction, and less crashing in front of Netflix. In 2021 I had a cancer diagnosis and surgery--it really helped following along with CBR reads and Facebook chat and knowing there were people out there enjoying reading books and supporting cancer research and patients even amid all the pandemic chaos.

drmllz's Reviews:

“Before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously”

Sawkill Girls (2018) by Claire Legrand

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I find it hard to write or think about YA fiction without thinking about Taylor Swift sometimes–in this particular case, ‘Seven’ from Folklore (2020): “Please picture me in the weeds / Before I learned civility / I used to scream ferociously /Any time I wanted.” Sawkill Girls is a scream of a book beneath its veneer of preppy popularity politics and teenage drama and desire: a scream of fear and despair and fury, a loud barbaric yawp against vanishing and silencing, a howl against monsters and the different […]

“you underestimate the detective instinct of village life”

The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) by Agatha Christie

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Bingo row 2, dwelling–the titular vicarage/crime scene. The vicarage in England is where the pastor of the Anglican Church lives–it’s usually associated with teas with the church ladies and sermon-composing and parish administration, rather than murder–especially the murder of a church warden. The cover of my edition is annoyingly irrelevant–the vicarage is far more important than the graveyard. We find out far more about the vicarage as a crime scene than as a dwelling here; Christie tends to sketch rather than paint a background. We […]

“something beautiful left town, and she never even knew its name”

Again, Rachel (2022) by Marian Keyes

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I haven’t been very well in the last couple of months–various new aches and pains and discomforts and a couple of random fevers; tests and scans come back OK for now; lots of “could be stress, could be anything” and late night browsing what “anything” might be (which is a bad thing to do, don’t do this). So I sought something chill to read (I’m about of a 10th of the way through Emily M. Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines (2020) which is brilliant and tangled […]

“Wayne Gretzky takes Pierre Trudeau into the boards”

The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy (2018) by Paul Myers

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So I watch a celebrity game show type thing in the UK called Taskmaster, and this season a Canadian comedian called Mae Martin is one of the contestants. I became instantly mildly fixated with them, and watched everything they’d ever done, including a sharp and dark and funny drama on Netflix called Feel Good (2020-21), their stand up set, and a sort of comedian game of chicken called Last One Laughing (Canada) on Prime, which also starred Dave Foley, who I knew from NewsRadio (1995-1999) […]

“It’s a role I play.” Max shrugged. “Just as you do.”

The Agency for Scandal (2023) by Laura Wood

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The Agency for Scandal (2023) is a children’s/YA late-Victorian set romantic romp with a dash of adventure and a feminist core. Isobel Stanhope has inherited her father’s talent for lock-picking but also his debts–which she must keep a secret from her delicate mamma and her younger brother, conveniently away at school. She is recruited to a mysterious agency called The Aviary, led by Miss Finch, a group of women dedicated to righting the wrongs that patriarchy inflicts on their sisters, and often using rather sneaky […]

“Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild”

Every Gift a Curse (2023) by Caroline O'Donoghue

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“I can feel our bravery fall away as we journey into the wood. We are not built for this. We are not the folksy teenagers you see in adventure stories. There is no one who’s a dab hand at archery, or who can chart our journey by looking at the last few visible stars.” (371-372) Every Gift a Curse is the third and final in Irish author Caroline O’Donoghue’s YA ‘Gifts’ trilogy, following All Our Hidden Gifts (2021) and The Gifts That Bind Us (2022). […]



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