Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

things that weren’t yours to lose

Arcadia by Lauren Groff

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I felt the air being knocked out of my chest on more than one occasion while sinking into Arcadia. Lauren Groff’s prose is sparse and beautiful, and there’s no way for me to accurately describe it without further muddying it into oblivion. She tells only what needs to be told; moments are fleeting, endings are organic, and jumps through time are poignant and crushing. I felt the ache of nostalgia for things that I have never experienced. I felt long-gone youthful optimism harden and calcify into […]

Florida Woman! (and friends)

Florida by Lauren Groff

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

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I didn’t read the About This Book for either of these until way too late which is how I ended up reading two short story collections back to back at the very beginning of a whirlwind overseas trip. I do apologize because while one was vastly superior to the other, they have both fully blurred together in my mind. I also can’t really remember much about either. Perhaps the reason that Florida stands out above The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is that there was enough […]

Theater references and a portrait of a perfectly imperfect marriage

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When I first finished this book, I *thought* I had a lot of strong opinions about it. Like, “Lotto is EXHAUSTING!”, or “These lucky bitches have a Shiba Inu puppy, and what do I have? Nothing!” But now, I’ve sat on it for a week, and all I can really muster for Fates and Furies is a “Meh.” I’m on record somewhere claiming that I love character-driven work, but also elsewhere claiming that a truly compelling plot can make me overlook deficiencies in other areas […]

Furiously Ambitious

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I know there are some legitimate issues with this book, but I’m giving it five stars for its pure ambition and energetic writing. I was quite reluctant to read this, actually, because I couldn’t get through Groff’s first novel, The Monsters of Templeton (I should mention that I started it when I was 36 weeks pregnant, so my attention span was not tip top). After seeing this one so consistently on the must-read lists for 2015, I picked it up at the library and couldn’t put […]

Like a Car Wreck or a Couple Fighting

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I don’t know how I feel about this novel. On the one hand, there’s no question that Lauren Groff can write and I kind of like the way the narrator of this novel slips into the heads of the characters but then pulls out [often in brackets] to comment on the story from a more omniscient vantage point. As a reader, you’re pulled in and then shoved out and then pulled in again [yes, I know how that sounds.] This is both the story of […]

Marriage IS a blend of Fates and Furies

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My friend S introduced me to Lauren Groff after I told her I had given up on Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! S told me she liked Monsters of Templeton a lot better, and after borrowing her copy, I heartily agreed. I also really liked Arcadia and was excited that Fates and Furies was nominated for a National Book Award. Fates and Furies focuses on the making and unmaking of a marriage in two acts. You must have one with the other, and each completes the other […]



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