Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The things that could have happened but did not are just as crucial to a life as all the things that do.”

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker

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This is the second book by Karen Thompson Walker (the first being The Age of Miracles), whereupon finishing the book, I was unsure how I felt and needed to sit with the story for a while. With TAOM, there was a lot to like — interesting premise, selfish tween narrator, fascinating vignettes of the day to day life that we take advantage of — but I always felt that maybe the book was a bit too much like “literary fiction” to be believed as the […]

You are getting very, very sleepy

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker

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This book was a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, I could hardly put it down and the lyricism was mesmerizing. On the other hand, it kind of went nowhere with the plot and left me wanting more and not in a good way. I kept waiting and waiting for something new to happen and it never really did. And yet, parts of it were super compelling. I guess I’d recommend this to readers who love prose and setting and are ok with […]

A strange age

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My library recommended this to me after I finished More Happy Than Not, and I can see why — while the plots have almost nothing in common, the style and theme seem similar. Basically, another coming-of-age story set against a slightly science fiction-y background (although the sci-fi in this story impacts the plot quite a bit more than the memory removal service in More Happy Than Not). “How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at […]

Growing up is a miracle

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The Age of Miracles is a coming of age story against the backdrop of a celestial/environmental disaster. Rather than going into great detail about the science behind the event, the novel focuses on how the seemingly mundane aspects of life are affected by our actions when we no longer can take the stability of the world around us for granted. Goodreads summary: “On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the […]

“…as if he knew even then that there existed under everything a universal grief”

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I suppose that The Age of Miracles can be viewed as a dystopian novel. In it our narrator, Julia, tells us about the year she turned 12 and the Earth’s turning slowed down, eventually leading to weeks of daylight and weeks of darkness. It can also be said that this is a sad book, about the dying and destruction of our world. These things are true, but somehow Karen Thompson Walker prevents the novel from being as unbearably sad as the description might have you […]

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

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 What would happen if the rotation of the earth slowed?  Beyond the  physical effects on the earth, what changes would occur socially?  How would a young person moving into their teen years deal with both the transition to adulthood and a crumbling society trying to stay afloat?  This book came highly recommended but ultimately left me a little cold.   I thought it fell short of its full potential.  The science fiction geek inside wanted a little more meat to conflict set up regarding earth’s […]



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