Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory is a remarkable and taut exploration of prejudice, history, and of course, memory. The book’s narrator and namesake, Memory, is an albino woman on death row in a Zimbabwean prison who is encouraged by her new lawyer to write her story for an American journalist who may be able to help win her freedom. Memory writes of the stark everyday life in prison and of the circumstances that have brought her there. But to fully explain, she must begin […]
Nothing’s More Important than Family, Right?
The Light of the Fireflies is a surprise of a book. It certainly seems like the heir apparent to Room, a book about a young boy who’s only known the life of a completely enclosed room (or set of rooms). Instead of living there only with his mother, he lives there with his family, all horrifically transfigured from a fire that forced them into their current living situation. His family comprises his strict father, his loving mother, his grandmother, his older brother, and his pregnant sister. […]
It’s a bloody thing, being a vampire
Coldtown was dangerous, Tana knew. A glamorous cage, a prison for the damned and anyone who wanted to party with them. So imagine you wake up from a party to find you are seemingly the only one alive in the house – all your friends are dead, drained of blood by vampires. This is how this book begins – with Tana freaking out over the discovery, finally finding her ex-boyfriend Aiden still alive but infected, along with a mysterious stranger. They manage to escape, just […]
Don’t be a dictator
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Animal farm is one of those classics that are pretty much absorbed and ingrained in society. It tells the story of some animals on a farm becoming deeply enraged about the unfairness as they do all the work and the farmer reaps the reward. They stage a revolution and rename the farm “Animal farm.” They adopt the Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, “All animals are equal.” And for […]
A golden cage is still a cage.
Yet another book that I probably would not have read if it hadn’t been recommended and eloquently reviewed by fellow Cannonballers. I took a Greek and Roman mythology course in college a million years ago and, sadly, very little of it stuck in my brain. I’m sure that a better familiarity with Greek gods, goddesses et al would have enhanced my reading of this, but I don’t think that it’s necessary here. This is a well told, gripping story of an immortal woman whose longing […]
Sanderson is getting Martinitis with the Stormlight Archive
You guys, this book is long. LOOOOOONNNGGGG. It took me over a month to read half of it – I took it out from the library months ago, there was a reserve on it so I couldn’t renew it, and had to pick it back up four months later and I STILL struggled to read it on time, despite being very eager to finish the story. While it’s not quite into Game of Thrones territory in terms of needing edits, but it’s in the ballpark. […]
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