Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I’m guessing Tidy doesn’t have a male editor….

When Grandma Burnt Her Bra by Samantha Tidy

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You know me, I like good humor.  Of course, offbeat humor is best. And when I find a book that is called When Grandma Burnt Her Bra and it is a picture book, you know I am all over that!  OMG, how did this one get past the censors? Samantha Tidy must have some gal-friends in high places! When the young granddaughter of the story and her grandmother start on the subject of women’s rights and feminism, watch out you dinosaurs! These women are loud […]

Of Lies and Men

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter

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On a balmy spring eve, eighteen year old Emily Vaughn zips herself into her prom dress with some difficulty, then walks over to her high school to confront the people she thought were her friends. It’s 1982 and Emily is about eight months pregnant. Reviled by her classmates, she is soon thrown out of the prom. Emily disappears on her way home; her dead body is found in a dumpster next morning.  Some forty years later, US Marshall Andrea Oliver, fresh off the academy, is […]

“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 […]

Your voice isn’t the only thing they can take away

Vox by Christina Dalcher

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So this book took me a while to read.  It was an audiobook, so I usually listened to it after dinner while taking my dog for a walk.  It took a while because it was almost painful to read.  It’s set in a dystopian future where all women have a bracelet with a word counter on their arms.  They’re only allowed 100 words per day.  If they go over their count, they get burned.  Literally. We get dropped into a family with one daughter and […]

Shocking that 19th century men didn’t like this novel!

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The Awakening is considered by many to be an American classic and a forerunner of modern feminist literature. Yet when it was published in 1899, it received more negative criticism than positive, leading author Kate Chopin to dedicate her talents to writing short stories exclusively for the remainder of her life. Given that most journalists and literary critics in the late 19th century were men, the chilly reception shouldn’t be surprising. The Awakening is about a married woman named Edna Pontellier who, while spending her summer on Grand […]

Sometimes A Book Stays With You

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I would never have picked this book up on my own, and as much as it’s an emotional roller coaster, I’m actually very happy my book club decided to read this. On a craft level, this book is incredibly accessible. I blew through it in two days, and literally thought about the characters every minute I wasn’t reading. It’s emotional, painful, with moments of brilliant love, and at its core, it’s the story of humans enduring the worst and still pressing on. A Thousand Splendid […]



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