Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Nart

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Nart is an avid romance reader who dabbles in other stuff when she has the spoons. When she’s not reading she’s a bureaucrat both professionally and as an activist because she’s a masochist. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Nart's Quick Questions interview.)

Nart's Reviews:

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

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It’s strange to say that I’m disappointed in a auto/biography, but here we are, and to be fair, this is a failure of expectations more than a failure of the book itself, because it was published in 1903, and what I was curious about didn’t happen until well after. Plot: The Story of My Life follows the famous Helen Keller from her birth to just before she became the first deafblind person to graduate from college. The first third was written by her with the […]

“Pretend that you have free will.”

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

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If you love science fiction and want something really different, this might be the best thing you read all year. Exhalation is a series of science fiction short stories with inspirations ranging from ancient Arab storytelling traditions to Monty Python sketches. I know this because Chiang provides a brief commentary at the end of many of the stories as to how it came about. As you might imagine, this diversity of inspirations creates an enormous variety in the stories. You might follow a portal to […]

“Because you never know when the person you meet at a bar might turn out to be the most interesting thing to happen to you in all your life.”

Madly by Ruthie Knox

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A May-December romance that actually tries to meaningfully deal with an age difference without ignoring the reality that people are not only more than their age, they are *mostly* other stuff. Plot: Allie’s parents are about to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, and she’s planning the party. Only mom has fucked off, again, and they have no idea when or if she’s coming back. So Allie hacks into her mom’s bank accounts (yes, using a password to access an account without permission is still hacking), […]

“People, generally speaking, are amoral, arse-licking hypocrites.”

The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert

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The Princess Trap takes very well trod territory in romance and breathes fresh life into it. Plot: Cherry Neita is turning thirty, and her work as an HR administrator at a private British school for overprivileged white boys is not particularly thrilling. But it’s stable and reliable, just like Cherry herself, and it helps ensure that her chronically ill but brilliant sister is able to pursue her academic dreams without sacrificing her health. Plus, she enjoys her very affordable hobby of what can only be […]

“I’m just a man-hating feminist who can’t take a joke? It’s totally my fault that it’s not funny, right?”

Undateable by Sarah Title

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A book about an angry, frumpy feminist who loves books getting a make over to stop being single? I could not wait to be mad at this book. Only I couldn’t. It’s adorable and funny and eschews the problems with its own premise expertly. Plot: Bernie is your standard angry feminist. She is extremely smart, she has a small group of devoted friends, she loves learning, and she has had it up to here with patriarchy. Her terrible poker face means that even when she […]

“Just a splash of whore.”

Hard Time by Cara Mckenna

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A surprisingly deft exploration of what starts out as a forbidden romance between a prisoner and a volunteer prison librarian and tries to expand the conversation to what it means to act ethically and questions whether there is ever one “right” way to act or be. Plot: Anne has been burned badly. Her last relationship ended after years of emotional abuse when the abuse became physical. In an attempt to rebuild, she left the south where she grew up and moved north to a small […]



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