Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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She/her. Longtime lurker, goodreads addict :D (Learn more about this Cannonballer: wicherwill's Quick Questions interview.)

wicherwill's Reviews:

so far off from what I usually read, and yet it’s the first book of 2023

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

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CW: there’s some off color ism language throughout that the modern day reader is likely to be mildly offended by–as you’ll see below, perhaps reading that helped me in some sense to not go into a spiral of re-evaluation If you, like me, are immediately put off by books that categorically fail the Bechdel test I do suggest you continue, including past the passage where two unnamed male characters talk about their onanism fantasies. This book, for all its glaring “THIS IS NOT FOR YOU”-ness, […]

might not be the book you think it is, but it might be the book you need

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

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Man oh man do people dislike this book! And when they do, they seem to dislike it for all sorts of suspicious reasons. Oh, white/western person, do you think the main characters in this book, the majority of whom are from colonies, spend a little bit too much time griping about the evils of the British colonial empire? Well then, boy do I have some news that’s going to REALLY disturb you about non-fictional humans in the real world who were once subjugated by the […]

popcorn romance novel :)

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan

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I’m surprised I liked this as much as I did, because in general I don’t enjoy romances that occur over short periods of time—it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t tie to reality, it draws me out of my enjoyment cocoon. But there was something about this novel that was charming nonetheless, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it as a palate cleanser (in my case, after reading a manifesto against colonialism that had me quite riled up). This is a pretty standard trope, with some […]

haunted house of late stage capitalism is correct

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

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Perhaps this isn’t a genuine five star book but I enjoyed myself so much while reading it that I’ve decided to throw a bit of caution to the wind and award it said coveted rating. Maybe I’ll revisit later on and have second thoughts, but as another reviewer noted this book is compulsively readable. Do you work in an office? Do you use Slack, or some other “more accessible” type of messaging platform meant to serve as a de-escalation from email which nonetheless has turned […]

YMMV but I get a lot of these novels

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

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Rooney has basically figured out the Adam Sandler of book gigs. This is a reference to how Adam Sandler seems to always make these movies where it is imperative that his character be in a tropical paradise, with a cast that includes his friends, in a time of year that’s convenient in terms of weather etc. Over three books, one cannot help but notice how the main characters of her novels (disaffected, slightly over educated Irish literary/liberal arts types who could be described as “permanent […]

again, perhaps not quite as enjoyable as the first outing but things are set up very well for the finale

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

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I have to say midway through I wasn’t liking this as much as I liked the previous installment. Something about the timeline, probably, because I’m always of the notion that characters should fall in love over an extended period of time instead of something artificial like a week. There’s also a lot of exposition and context in this one, to get us from the barest outlines of a conspiracy to a full blown catastrophe. The main point isn’t that complicated–Maud, Robin’s brother, has been sent […]



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