Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Life had manifested the heart’s invisible furies on his face.”

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

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This book chewed me up and spit me back out. In a good way, of course. But seriously, I had a major book hangover after finishing this one. The writing, the story, the characters were all so, so beautiful. I started sobbing after it was over because I was so overwhelmed with how lovely what I just read was. The story follows Cyril Avery’s life, born in the 1940s, all the way up until present day. His mother was cruelly kicked out of her rural […]

Stick around for the second half

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I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland, but definitely not the Ireland in this book. The Heart’s Invisible Furies tells the story of post-World War II Ireland, a country culturally under the thumb of an oppressive Catholic Church. Most of my understanding of the legal impact of Catholicism in Ireland was in relation to abortion rights (or lack thereof) and horrifying institutions for unwed mothers, so it makes sense that it would be an equally horrible, horrible place to be gay. And oh boy. So this is […]

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

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This story is from the perspective of Bruno, a nine year old boy living in Berlin, Germany. In the beginning, Bruno moves with his family from Berlin to a place that he calls “Out-with.” Throughout, you see his confusion about what’s going on around him. Why did his family have to move? Bruno wants to go back to Berlin where his friends are, and where his grandparents are. Looking out his bedroom window, he sees in the distance a fence, and beyond that fence, he sees […]

A war-time fable that didn’t really work for me

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Nine-year-old Bruno lives in a big house in Berlin and is not at all happy when the household is packed up and he, his mother, his older sister and the servants are forced to travel by train to a new house, far away in the desolate countryside. He misses the bustling city, the house with such a great banister for sliding down, his grandparents, his friends, even his school. At the new house, there is no one to play with, just a small garden and […]

A child’s view of the Holocaust

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I sometimes peruse Goodreads reviews, especially for books like Fifty Shades of Grey, because there are some hilarious “ZOMG this book is hottt!!!!” reviews followed by vitriol like you never would believe (well. I totally can). Never have I been so surprised to read vehement responses against John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The anger is almost hilarious–“kids don’t really talk like that!!!” “How stupid were these people??? They HAD to know about the Holocaust!!!” etc. I like to call this response a […]



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