Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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vel veeter's Reviews:

My father has sent a telegram to the War Office.

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend

The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole by Sue Townsend

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Growing Pains This second book is just as good as the first, but slightly different. We pick up right where the story left off with Adrian Mole still pining for Pandora, his hip, cool, too hot for him Leftist girlfriend, and living at home with his parents. His mom, it turns out, has become pregnant, and his father’s ex girlfriend, whom Adrian calls “Stick Insect” is also pregnant. Adrian wonders aloud, who would impregnate her. He also notices that when he tells Pandora and her […]

It ends with a text, friend to friend: I’m out.

And I Do Not Forgive You by Amber Sparks

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The opening story of this collection involves in the complicated mess of modern friendships which can be as impactful and hurtful as romantic relationships, but are missing the defining boundaries of those so a ghosting between friends is harder to process. And I think this becomes a model through which most of these stories find their defining shape and quality. A short, snappy collection of stories that both flows and reads really quickly and interestingly, and almost instantly fades as quickly. This book reminds me a […]

Because we were very poor and could not buy another bed, I used to sleep on a pallet made of old coats and comforters in same room with my mother and father.

Boston Adventure by Jean Stafford

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A very dense first novel by the writer Jean Stafford. Her next two novels will be relatively slim by comparison, and while I think this one should have been cut by about a 1/3 (I had some real fatigue by the end), it’s not bloated, but overly rich. It’s carefully and slowly wrought, and the background presented in the first section is very thoughtful and interesting, but by the time we get to the second half, it feels either somewhat immaterial to conclusion, or more […]

They sat stiffly on his antique Eames chairs, two people who didn’t want to be here, or one person who didn’t want to and one who resented the other’s reluctance.

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress

Beggars in Spain (Novel) by Nancy Kress

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So, I didn’t even know this book was a book when I went to read it. I bought the novellla a few months ago because it won the Nebula and I like the title. The rest of the review will be about the full novel that I was able to pick up later and read. The novella begins in a doctor’s office in the nearish future (less nearish at the time of the writing of the book) where an officious rich man is berating a […]

The boy wakes me up: Do you know where mosquitos come from, Mama?

Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli

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Like a lot of first novels, this book feels like it’s contending with the purpose and possibility and justification for writing a novel in the first place. A lot of times male writers don’t end up ever asking that question, so it’s left to the critics and readers to think about this on their own. In this book, we are faced directly with the justification of writing itself. A novelist in Mexico City is writing a novel and reaching and grabbing from her life and […]

He was an angry man, and an ugly man, and he was tall, and he was pacing.

All this Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg

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A sexual manipulative, financially abusive patriarch in an America family lies dying in a hospital while we follow the ripple effect of his damage across multiple generations and more ancillary connections. His son and daughter are feuding about their upbringing while the son, usually reliable, decides whether or not he will show for his father. His daughter traces her own choices in life and love through the radiating influence of her dysfunctional father. His wife traces his sexual and financial misdeeds. His grandchildren, his daughter […]



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