Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Ms. Was told me this book was a gem and, by gum, she was right!

The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin

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As a book lover, nothing delights me more than when a friend recommends a book to me and, after reading it, I’m able to go back and tell her that I unequivocally loved it. For a few years now, Ms. Was has been singing the praises of The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, and now I’m finally able to say, “Thank you for introducing me to this gem.” Brangwain Spurge is an elf entrusted with an important mission: Enter the land of the goblins and deliver […]

Two sisters, one folklore and a sea monster

The Daughters of Ys by M.T. Anderson

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I love M.T. Anderson and First Second books. However, there was something “off” about this graphic novel by Anderson, The Daughters of Ys. I am not sure if it was because I had such high hopes, or if the story was not organized, or that it was a folktale that I was unfamiliar with, but there were holes in it for me. I do like the idea of this folktale. The start of the tale is a flashback. There is a king who almost did […]

“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”

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This was a very interesting concept that was hampered by unsympathetic protagonists and, heightened for me since I listened to the audio book, excruciatingly dialog. Everything was ‘meg brag’ or ‘like, da da da’ and they referred to each other as ‘Unit.’ The language made sense since this was basically Idiocracy with better technology but it was just painful to listen to what our world is realistically devolving into… Titus in an upper middle class kid who goes to the Moon on vacation with his friends during Spring […]

Can I say it sucked?

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Well, this marks the second YA novel by M. T. Anderson that I’ve read, and probably the last (the other one, Feed, sucked, too). I feel like I can see what the author meant to do here, but if my assumptions about his intentions are correct, then he fell pretty far from his mark. If I’m wrong, well, then, I just don’t think we’re meant to be. “And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made very […]

“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”

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Here’s another YA novel with an interesting concept, but less than stellar execution. “I don’t know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.” Feed takes place sometime in the future, with flying cars and Spring Break on the moon. […]

Feed me, Seymour…

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Earlier this week, I looked at Target’s website to see if they carried shoe repair glue. I didn’t want to make a trip if they didn’t have it (they didn’t, by the way), so I did a brief thirty-second search online rather than drive to the store and be seduced in to buying things I don’t need. Now, each time I log on to the interwebs, I’m inundated by ads for shoe glue, shoe inserts, and cobblers. I rarely pay attention to those ads – […]



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