Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Mesmerizing, magical, terrifying

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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Although it seems a bit trite to recommend Station Eleven on this site (I know it was the latest book club choice- I’m late to the party!) and in a pandemic generally (I feel like its been on every ‘what to read in a pandemic’ book list), I am aggressively recommending this book to anyone looking for a recommendation (and even occasionally to those who aren’t- its that good). For anyone who has somehow missed the hype, Station Eleven is about a pandemic, the fictional […]

Bodies Hit The Floor

Killing Williamsburg by Bradley Spinelli

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A big ol’ content warning: this book is about suicide. Suicide is on almost every page. The book itself includes graphic depictions of suicide and bodies in a post-mortem state as a result of suicide. Though I won’t go into detail myself, there’s no way to avoid talking about suicide in this review. If you are triggered by suicide or have a history with suicidal ideation, please skip both this book and this review. … Along with Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, this is another New York […]

“What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the more you’ve lost.”

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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I thought I remembered much more of Station Eleven than I did; I had remembered it as a story of Kirsten and the Traveling Symphony and several scrapes with some religious extremists. I remembered Jeevan in the fortress of his brother’s tower. I remembered skulking through rotting schools and all-encompassing trees. What strikes me now is how immediately the sense of dread starts to kick in; there is no slow build; a statement about everything falling to pieces kicks in within the first chapter. Maybe […]

The most beautiful book about the end of the world you’ll ever read

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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When I read that Station Eleven would be a book club read, I decided to borrow it from my local library. I wasn’t familiar with it, but I knew that it came recommended by many in the CBR community. I had no idea this book would be so beautiful and so moving, the first book I’ve read in 2020 that I truly love. Station Eleven is the story of our world before and after its collapse as the result of a pandemic so devestating that […]

It is the best of times and worst of times, to read Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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Okay, yes, that is a Dicken’s quote, and it would have been more appropriate to use Shakespeare, but the sentiment is there.  Being on the verge of a potential pandemic makes reading Station Eleven occasionally challenging, as it’s easy to extrapolate how this could happen.  However, the book ends in hope.  While the world has gone through an apocalypse, people are still creating and sharing art, lifting each other up by nourishing the soul.  And I would hope the same would happen in our world […]

Reproductive Freedom and the Apocalypse

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

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  Content warning: sexual violence, stillbirth A worldwide plague kills nearly everyone on the planet. A midwife wakes in a San Francisco hotel. (It’s practically “28 Days Later.”) She stocks up on antibiotics—and, critically, birth control—and walks into an extra-hellish hellscape. Since females experienced the highest mortality rate, the rare woman or girl that survives is a treasure. Commodity. Object. The midwife trains herself to be self-sufficient. She carries a gun. However, the key to her survival is her avoidance of other people—that is, men. […]



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