Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

2nd Bingo!!!

Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert's Story by Debbie Tung

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The lovely faintingviolet read this recently, and her review prompted me to immediately request it from my library. I am an extroverted introvert (I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true), and an INFJ on the Meyers Briggs scale, so when faintingviolet said that Debbie Tung’s Quiet Girl in a Noisy World hit all the right spots for her (an also INFJ and an introvert), I decided to give this a go. I’m not usually one for graphic novels, but I’m trying new things […]

HOLD UP. This is the first of a trilogy? Yikes. Part of me wants to know more, and part of me is just too tired.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

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I feel like a bit of a failure as a reader (well, a listener) after this experience. This was not easy. I really wanted to love this story. It was beautifully imagined and written. This story had everything: drama, action, humor, and adventure. The audiobook performance was unbelievable. The African mythology it was based upon made me want to know more. And yet, I barely made it to the end. From Amazon: Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He […]

We live over and over in the happening only to be left with what’s already done.

Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera

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CBR11 BINGO: History Schmistory (BINGO! Reading the TBR corner to Summer Read corner) Set in the American south in the 1920’s, this novel fits nicely into the “History Schmistory” square. Just a generation into rebuilding after the civil war and shortly after a boll weevil infestation ruins the cotton industry, the inhabitants of a small South Carolina town and it’s outskirts are scrambling to make ends meet. The novel is told through the voices of three very different women: a first generation free black woman, the matriarch […]

When I grow up I want to be Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Katherine Hepburn, Caroline Jones and Rachel Wiley

Fat Girl Finishing School by Rachel Wiley

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#cbr11bingo #TwoHeadsareBetterThanOne Fat Girl Finishing School by Rachel Wiley came before the poetry collection, Nothing is Okay. And I am glad that I read that one first, as Fat Girl, in several ways, was not as strong. As much as I love Wiley, the themes are consistent, therefore, you know they style after reading (or listening) a handful of poems. That is not to say they are all not amazing, they are. Wiley knows how to twist a phrase around on itself and punch you. […]

A humorous and insightful exhortation

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by W. Kamau Bell

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Cbr11bingo Listicles (From Roxane Gay Book Recommendations) Bingo #8 The full title of this book is The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6’4”, African-American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmantic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian. And all of that detailed identity is covered in this collection of funny, provocative, thoughtful essays that are part memoir and part cultural/political commentary. I have to admit that the only thing I knew about Bell before reading these essays is that he […]

“During the Middle Ages, there was a special English word for women who dared to speak in public: they were labeled scolds.” (BINGO!)

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

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Fellow Cannonballer kdm posted on Facebook about reading Wordslut and based on her recommendation and its eye-catching cover I immediately requested it from my library. I’ve read my share of feminist books over the past several years, trying to build my own repertoire of experience and knowledge whether it be in the form of a treatise on Single Ladies, the recollections of a self-described Bad Feminist, or feminist geeks, or the story of a heroine of mine the Notorious RBG. Amanda Montell’s Wordslut is a […]



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