Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Quiet Book About Surviving Alone

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

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On the surface, this translated, dystopian work from 1963 doesn’t seem like it should be as engaging as it is. It’s slow-paced, introspective, and all about a woman milking a cow, scything hay, chopping wood, describing the weather, and spending time with animals. Nothing really happens. But I was so interested. The book does start with a big event, though. Our nameless narrator wakes up to find that her traveling companions who had gone out the previous night had never returned. When she heads to […]

A.I.: The Good, The Bad, The Monster

The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag

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History, CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge TITLE: The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag REVIEW: It is complex. It is different. It is familiar. It is sad. It is confusing. It is straight forward. It is something you have never read before. It is something you know. You will get something from it and everyone else will get their own thing, but everyone will experience it emotionally. Or not. Just read it already, alright  I cannot  tell you about this book as I am not really 100% […]

When the clock doesn’t tick

Hourglass by Barbara Mazzi

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Twenty is just a cog in the wheel of the utopian society in Hourglass by Barbara Mazzi. Or at least for  the privileged.  Twenty is trying for one of the coveted positions on the team of engineers. If you make it to the top the reward is everything. But until then, they help keep the Hour Glass running so the privileged few can reap the reward of immortality. But when a real piece of the machine goes missing, more than the Hour Glass will fall […]

Orphans and them

We Called Them Giants by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles

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I have had We Called Them Giants by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles as an online reader copy for a few months. I have had opportunities to read it, but for the most part I figured it would expire before I had a chance to. Thankfully I was able to find it and read it at lunch today. It was an interesting experience. This graphic novel is an on book. We know the dystopian aspects (a girl wakes up one morning to find […]

A Dystopian Alternate History of WW2

Widowland: A Novel by C.J. Carey

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In this alternate version of history, Great Britain and Nazi Germany forged an alliance in 1939, preventing World War II and creating a “Protectorate” in England in which women are divided into castes, Jewish people are mostly barred from public life, and reading for pleasure is discouraged, though not yet outright banned. It is now 1953. Our protagonist Rose is a “Geli”, the highest rank a woman can achieve, and works for the Ministry of Culture where she rewrites classics of English literature to better […]

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Animal Farm by George Orwell

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In five words: masterpiece, Stalin, dystopia, idealism, satire I have reread Orwell’s 1984 more times than I can admit. I think it (and he) is what started my lifelong love of dystopian fiction. Even though Animal Farm is much shorter, and I’m sure I read it in high school (only because it lives on my bookshelves in the “stuff from high school” area) I didn’t remember much about it. My kiddo came home with it from 9th grade and I grabbed my copy, ready to […]



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