Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About esmemoria

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Eager to get back on the horse this year! In my walking around life, I miss my old, blind pug (the Ancient Mariner), help amazing college students become teachers, and tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: esmemoria's Quick Questions interview.)

esmemoria's Reviews:

Beautiful and Hard to Grasp

Jazz by Toni Morrison

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Bingo: Free (taking the place of “Arts” square) I read quite a bit of Toni Morrison many years ago, and remember being dazzled. More than most writers, she could really draw deep feelings out of me. A while back I read a passage from her book Jazz, and it was so evocative it made me buy the book. Like her other works, it’s incredibly beautiful and real and heart-breaking. But it was also a hard book to read because I truly got lost sometimes and […]

Not All Serial Killer Novels are the Same

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

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Bingo: Purple You do not feel the same love that everyone else does. Yours is muted, damp, not bursting or breaking. But there is a place for you, in the category of personhood” Danya Kukafa’s Notes on an Execution is an incredible read and proof that you can write a novel about a serial killer where nothing is gratuitous, the characterization is complex, and the plot is full of nuances that lend depth to the work. The book opens with Ansel, a serial killer who […]

Popular Doesn’t Mean Good

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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Bingo: Black I feel a little guilty saying this, but I was singularly unmoved by Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. I feel guilty because the book was trying so hard, and so obviously, to strike the reader’s heart. But no matter what happened, what threats were faced, what deaths were shown, I could not squeeze out an ounce of caring. The book’s narrator is death. His attention is captured by a young girl named Leisel, who he calls the book thief for her irresistible urge […]

Light Mystery, Solid Ending

The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer

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Bingo: Borrowed. I borrowed this online book from the library. This light-weight mystery by Georgette Heyer is set in a familiar milieu: a weekend at an English country estate filled with a plethora of guests. There is the heroine, her sister, the sister’s bombastic and wealthy husband who owns the estate, a broke nephew, a man in love with the sister, a down on their luck couple whose flirtatious wife mesmerizes the bombastic husband, a middle aged widow, a vicar and his judgmental wife, and […]

A Timeless Play about Love and Gay Life

Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein

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Bingo: Favorite. One of my favorite movies of all time is Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy. I have read the play and loved it too; this is a favorite reread. I moved to San Francisco from New York in 1990 when I was 21 years old. One of my first friends made me dinner one night and showed me his favorite movie, Torch Song Trilogy. It was love at first watch for me. It was so funny and heartbreaking and real. The written play is […]

“But still, still, it was a time she missed, a place she’d fly back to in a heartbeat”

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

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Bingo: Recommended. A book tokker I enjoy highly recommended this book Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers is one of those books that is so good, that immerses you so much, and touches you somewhere so old and grief-laden, that it’s hard to write the review. It’s one of those things where you have so much to say but without the faith you can say it right. The book flip flops between the mid eighties/early nineties and 2015. The eighties portion follows Yale, a young gay […]



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