Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About ElCicco

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Married, mom of two, history PhD, feminist. I've been participating in Cannonball Read since CBR4. I love to read, and writing reviews keeps me from reading without thinking. I feel like I owe it to the authors who entertain me to savor their creations. It's like slowing down and enjoying a delicious meal instead of bolting your food. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: ElCicco's Quick Questions interview.)

ElCicco's Reviews:

A fairy tale turned horror story

Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

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Snow, Glass, Apples was a gift from cannonballer Ardaigle for the CBR15 Holiday Book Exchange. I’d put it on my wish list because I’ve enjoyed the Gaiman novels that I’ve read so far and the art for this short story looked (and truly is) gorgeous. As you might guess from the title, this is a version of Snow White, but it is not like any Snow White I’ve ever read. Like the works of Angela Carter and Helen Oyeyemi, this is an adult fairy tale, […]

The Mona-Lisa (Saperstein) of Old New York

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

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Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel The Custom of the Country is a commentary on manners and society in the vein of a Jane Austen novel, and it is a dark, brooding tale of dysfunctional families reminiscent of the Brontes. The main character, Undine Spragg, is a strikingly beautiful young woman from one of the upstart “new” families, desperately trying to break into New York society and make a good marriage to old money. I’ve seen the name Undine Spragg come up quite a lot recently in […]

She sees dead people. They know they’re dead and they want justice.

Shutter: A Novel by Ramona Emerson

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The first chapter of Shutter is tough to read. Main character Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque police department, and she is on assignment. A young woman named Erma Singleton has either jumped or been pushed to her death from an overpass over an interstate highway, and now Rita must photograph all the remains at the scene. Being a forensic photographer, seeing the aftermath of such violence on a daily basis and taking hundreds of detailed shots of it, would take an […]

Suspicion

Symposium: A Novel by Muriel Spark

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There is something about writers from Scotland, rather like those from Scandinavia, that just brings along the darkness. Reading Muriel Spark’s short 1990 novel Symposium reminded me of a read from last year, Elspeth Barker’s 1991 novel O, Caledonia. Both novels feature old moneyed families fallen on hard times in Scotland, and both cast a gimlet eye on the intellectual, propertied class. Also, both are excellent, quick reads. Symposium is a murder mystery that happens while a dinner party is occurring. Sparks takes us in […]

1984/Julia

1984 by George Orwell

Julia by Sandra Newman

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Over the years I have read 1984 maybe half a dozen times, always for class-related assignments when I was a student or when I was a teacher. It has probably been over 20 years since my last re-read, and I’m glad I picked it up again before reading Sandra Newman’s Julia, a take on 1984 from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover. I have always found 1984 to be a challenging read; dystopian fiction is unsettling and the end of 1984 is tragic. […]



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