Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It was a relief and a horror to be known so perfectly.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

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I’m not sure if I can categorize this book as dark academia, but the characters and the story remind me so much of what I enjoyed about “If We Were Villains” and “The Secret History,” it is impossible for me not to draw parallels between them. All three stories are linked by a sudden and violent death, and how those left behind cope with their secrets. Paul is a seventeen-year-old who has recently graduated from high school. He lives with his mother and his two […]

Full Cannonball, Total Banger

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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Alright, maybe not a total banger – more like a satisfyingly slow burn – but I wanted to finish my Cannonball Read with something I’ve wanted to read for a while and it ended up being this. I was planning on reading it someday, so when I came across a copy in at a thrift store (cost me about three bucks in conjunction with The Little Friend) I figured fate was trying to tell me something.  I was working as a lowly book shop employee […]

“I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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Been putting off this review because this book is too smart for me. Or, actually, all the characters and maybe the author want to be smarter than me. I am pretty smart! I just have different priorities than everyone in this book. I don’t know about Donna Tartt, it could go either way with her. I still haven’t decided if she secretly empathizes with all these assholes she birthed from her mind, or if she’s skewering people and ideas and places instead. Either, way, this […]

Glorious depravity

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Richard is a Californian, kind of poor kid that goes off to college on the East Coast. He is also kind of lost: he’s already changed his major twice, and now he chooses to study only Greek (and a little French) knowing fully well that it won’t lead to any job opportunities later on. There is an air of mystery surrounding the Greek professor and his select few students. Richard is in awe of them. Their world, partly because they come from rich families, is […]

The Secret History – The ‘Girls’ of Novels

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I should start by saying I hated this book and the only reason I finished it was so I could write a review and not feel guilty for leaving it unread and looking up the ending on Wikipeadia. Basically I did it for you, Cannonballers. All for you. To me, this book was a literary equivalent of the HBO show Girls. Annoying, pretentious, holier-than-thou, and self-centered. I wanted to punch every, single character in the face. And you know what? I think that’s exactly what Tartt had […]



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