Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Suddenly revenge is so close he can actually taste it. It tastes like steak, rare.”

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

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I actually really enjoyed this retelling of The Tempest*, particularly since I had just re-read the play as a refresher, so it was a lot easier to catch all the references and parallels. This is actually only my third Margaret Atwood book, which feels weird, since she is everywhere, and also because I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale three times. About time I branched out! (I’m sorry, Malin, I still haven’t read The Blind Assassin, which is a book I know you love.) *Thanks to andtheIToldYouSos […]

“You asked me questions nobody ever asked me before. You knew that I was a murderer two times over, but you treated me like a man.”

Native Son by Richard Wright

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My brain is mush today, but I have time to try and catch up on reviews, so I’m going to attempt to review a masterpiece of literature while coasting on an ebb tide of intelligence. This is, I believe, the book I have owned the longest without reading. I’ve moved ten times since I bought it in college for a class that didn’t even end up reading it. I have kept it all this time, through lo so many book purges, because I always meant […]

One of the first queer novels has a happy ending.

Maurice by E.M. Forster

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“A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn’t have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.” -E.M. Forster Secretly, E.M. Forster had the heart of a romance novelist. I say that half in jest, but also half seriously. Romance novel HEA’s are serious business. We come to them for solace, for surety and […]

Blackout. The Whale has eaten me. I repeat the Whale has eaten me and I am now dead. #CBRBINGO – White Whale

Possession by A.S. Byatt

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This review will not be long, for this book has defeated me, and in such a way that I don’t overly feel like enumerating what went wrong here. The short answer is most likely that I’m just not the right reader for this book (and this author, which is why I’ve deleted The Children’s Book from my TBR). I bought this ages ago, probably over a decade, and finally gave it a try about six years ago. I got 48 pages in before I said I’d […]

“The fact that they have families and parents . . . is why they shouldn’t do these things, not why we should forgive them.” #CBRBINGO – Uncannon

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

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I have had terrible luck with lit-fic so far this year, so it’s nice that my streak is finally broken. This book was great. Depressing, but great. And I never would have picked it up on my own except that it qualified nicely for the novel in translation category (non-European) for the Read Harder Challenge, and it was short! And very well regarded. So thanks, Read Harder! Doing your job. Kim Jiyoung is a young mother living in Korea. She quit her job in marketing […]

My love for the beautiful cover did not translate to love, or even like, of the book.

The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

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I AM NOT ALLOWED TO GET LIT-FIC FROM BOOK OF THE MONTH ANYMORE*. I am completely unable to judge this book on it own merits because I was so unenthused while reading it, and the style really put me off. People are absolutely shitting themselves over this one, and it sounded so interesting to me, I’m upset I didn’t get anything out of it. *Except, this one time they had The Vanishing Half? And I loved that book. Maybe I will just make my rule […]



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