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:

On the outside looking in

Almost American Girl: An Illustrated Memoir by Robin Ha

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This wonderful illustrated memoir is Robin Ha’s story of moving from Seoul, South Korea, for  the US as a teenager in 1995 and trying to make a new life here with her mother. It is a deeply moving story of a young girl, only 14, being suddenly uprooted from her friends and community, and having to learn a new language, adapt to a new family, and figure out a new culture in Alabama. Thanks to her art, Robin (formerly Chuna) finds a way to bring […]

Smash the Patriarchy

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

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The Mirror and the Light ends Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell, a commoner who rose to the heights of power serving Henry VIII only to die by the axe as a traitor. This third volume is a slog — 759 pages devoted to the last years of Cromwell’s life, from the summer 1536 to the summer of 1540. While volume two tripped along a good clip in its depiction of the fall of Anne Boleyn (always interesting to read about), this […]

A Cinderella Story/The Godfather

Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel by Hilary Mantel

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After a prolonged break, Hilary Mantel finally returned to the Wolf Hall trilogy this year with The Mirror and the Light, the final installment in the fictionalized account of the rise and fall of the real Thomas Cromwell, a talented man who rose from humble beginnings to become Master Secretary and consigliere to King Henry VIII. I read the first two books when they came out (in 2009 and 2012) and thought they were fantastic. Both won numerous prestigious prizes including the Man Booker Prize […]

It ends at the beginning but doesn’t add up

Season of Storms: A Novel of the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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This final Witcher novel was written over 10 years after The Lady of the Lake, the finale of the Witcher series, apparently because the Witcher video games had taken off and Sapkowski figured he could milk that cash cow one more time. Season of Storms is actually set before the rest of the series, which fits in with Sapkowski’s predilection for out of whack time lines. I can’t say that it really adds much to the series overall. There’s plenty of violence, treachery and gore, […]

Uneven end to the story of the Witcher

The Lady of the Lake: A Novel of The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Although there is an 8th book in the series, The Lady of the Lake is pretty much the end of the story of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri, and in it things get weird. This novel is a combination of sci-fi time travel, military campaigns, and the usual fantasy stuff we have come to expect, with elves, dwarves, unicorns (!) and plenty of fighting and violence. Compared to the previous books, this one has sections that really drag on, usually featuring military campaigns and side characters […]

Endings and beginnings

The Tower of Swallows: A Novel of the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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Throughout the Witcher series, the message has been that something big is coming; the world will end and a new world will dawn, and Ciri, the child of the Elder Blood, will help bring this about. Geralt frequently states that he feels like something in him is changing as well, that something is coming to an end, and in this fourth novel (sixth book) of the Witcher series, the reader gets a sense of what he means. Geralt’s schtick has always been that, as a […]



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