Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About vega-table

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Seattle area hermit, staying in with my video games, books, cats, and beer. Living the dream.

vega-table's Reviews:

A magic high stakes funeral

Psychopomp and Circumstance by Eden Royce

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The protagonist of Eden Royce’s Psychopomp and Circumstance, Phaedra St. Margaret is known as Phee, which challenged the way I pronounced ‘Phaedra’ in my head. The St. Margarets are a rich Reconstruction era rich Black family. They are made of overbearing mother, passive father, and wilful daughter – Phee – who unwillingly goes to Get a Husband bustle dress dance parties. At the old age of 21, Phee is ready to stop going to these parties, stop getting courted, and go do her own thing, […]

if women were “naturally” anything, societies wouldn’t spend so much time trying to police every aspect of their lives

The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley

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I found The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley because I needed a palate cleanser after some 19th century melancholia. And it worked. If you want something that isn’t Eline Vere by Louis Coperus, I can highly recommend this book. A lot has happened in feminism and geekery since the book was published in 2016, shortly after gamergate (which was covered) and shortly before Trump was elected and the me too movement blew up in 2017. I got ready to abandon the book when I […]

Trivializing death

Obitchuary: the Big Book of Death by Madison Reyes and Spender Henry

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I’m grieving right now and I’m pretty sensitive. So I probably should have considered my mental state when I saw Obitchuary by Madison Reyes and Spender Henry at the library, but I didn’t consider anything when I checked it out because it’s called Obitchuary. I like puns, dark humor, and am easily entertained. It’s a fun, interesting book of trivia, but it doesn’t have much besides factoids. I found out that caskets and coffins are not the same thing! Coffins roughly mimic the human shape […]

I don’t even know what bizarre is anymore

Golden Wind (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5) by Hirohiko Araki

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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind stars Giorno Giovana, a teenager in Italy who turns to crime after being raised poorly by a negligent mother and abusive stepfather. Shenanigans and tragedy ensue, as is routine with the JoJo series. Prior JoJo knowledge isn’t necessary for Golden Wind, which is easy for me to say since I’ve read the previous four parts and might not notice if some critical information relies on them. Taken by itself, the story is a fun road-trip-in-a-turtle story about a […]

inertia has never been so fun

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov

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Bingo Row 3 – O If I planned this bingo here, I would have not used up books that start with O on other boxes. But I didn’t and did and I read myself into a corner. So I read Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov. Ilya Ilich Oblomov is a fat, lazy, spoiled rich kid. And by kid, I mean 30-something adult man. He is so lazy, he’s the origin of the word ‘oblomovism’ (which is a synonym for lazy and not a word I hear […]

This book didn’t have an index

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

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Bingo Row 5 – work The Library Book by Susan Orlean is “about” the 1986 fire at the LA central library. The actual fire wasn’t the point of the book so much as the excuse for it. It was really about the Los Angeles library, libraries in general, and mostly about librarians doing their job. The book covered librarians ranging from superheroes to self-centered jerks, with a range of gender and competency, but all of them care about libraries and they all care about their […]



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