Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I do not want to be protected. I want to be safe.”

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy

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What are ways that women are not supposed to be? What are they not supposed to do? Mona Eltahawy interrogates social behavioral control of women and non-binary people through the framing of seven types of behavior that are understood to be in some way improper. Anger, Attention, Profanity, Ambition, Power, Violence, and Lust. In Seven Necessary Sins Elthawy asks one of the most important questions – Who does this benefit? The author argues not only that women and girls should engage in activities driven by […]

“Profanity is an essential tool in disrupting patriarchy and its rules. It is the verbal equivalent of civil disobedience.”

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy

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Happy Women’s History Month in the US. Let’s talk about feminism and burning patriarchy to the ground, shall we? When I read ASKReview’s review of The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls in December 2021 I immediately threw it onto my to read list for 2022. A book described succinctly as “a call to action written by a queer woman of color” was absolutely something I want to read. There is much in the world that is fucking awful and the roots of that […]

“Our humanity is worth a little discomfort, it’s actually worth a lot of discomfort.”

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

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I wish I felt better so I could really give So You Want to Talk About Race what it deserves, review-wise. The short review is if you haven’t already read this, you need to. Maybe you are like me and put it on your TBR right after its publication in 2018 and then it fell slowly down the list. Maybe you saw it on all of the recommended reading lists that proliferated in summer 2020 (A Reading List on Race for Allies, Antiracist Reading, Understanding […]

Feminism is for everybody. Like, literally.

Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

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I’ve been trying to actively read more anti-racist resources and implement them in my life. I bought Hood Feminism late last summer but have had such a giant stack that I am only now getting to it. I am *so* glad I bought it, because I look forward to returning to it and recommending it to my own students. Mikki Kendall’s premise is that mainstream feminism is too white (it is) and focuses on “lean in issues” that really only protect the comforts of white […]

The Intersectional Autobiographical Approach to Understanding Racism

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

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Bingo review 10: Book Club I work at a regional state university. Earlier this summer, we got an email containing a book club invitation that will begin a series of events designed to reflect each of the institution’s official values. Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist was chosen in association with “adaptability”, and probably also in association with the current focus on race and racism in the US. According to the accompanying flyer, this group will meet monthly throughout the fall semester digitally, […]

Luke Cage meets noir meets The Diviners meets more please!

Abbott by Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä

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Abbott is a brief, five-issue series set in 1970s Detroit about journalist Elena Abbott, lone black female reporter at the Detroit Daily. Abbott prefers to delve into the stories the paper’s board would rather not see printed. She’s recently getting heat for her piece on the death of a black teen at the hands of police, but so far she’s been protected by her loyal boss. She has a new case on the horizon and it’s a grisly one.  A mutilated police horse is found […]



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