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:

The setting is otherworldly but the trauma is not

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

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This is my third Nalo Hopkinson novel, and while I think Brown Girl in the Ring and Sister Mine are better works, I nevertheless liked this one quite a lot. Hopkinson has a unique talent for blending fantasy, science fiction, and Afro-Caribbean culture/history into stories of female empowerment. Midnight Robber’s main character is a girl who suffers trauma at the hands of someone she ought to have been able to trust and who then must find the path to her own healing. Midnight Robber is […]

The characters have as much personality and development as chess pieces

The Queen’s Gambit: A Novel by Walter Tevis

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Author Walter Tevis had a knack for writing stories that seem to adapt well to the screen. The Queen’s Gambit, written in 1983, is a current hit series on Netflix, but Tevis, who died in 1984, also penned The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Hustler, and The Color of Money. I have not seen The Queen’s Gambit (or any of the other films) but I can say that the novel reads very much like a screenplay. He gives the reader action and tension on […]

Once upon a time there was a house…

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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The Dutch House is a novel that has a fairy tale vibe to it. The house is, of course, central to the story and it’s kind of like a castle — it has a history of its own and a presence in the community. The Dutch House is a sign of wealth and a connection to the main characters’ past. Author Ann Patchett also gives the reader an evil stepmother, a missing queen, and a father/king who seems caught up in his material wealth while […]

Night Witches and Nazi Hunters!

The Huntress: A Novel by Kate Quinn

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A couple of Cannonballs ago, I reviewed Kate Quinn’s novel The Alice Network, a work of historical fiction about female spies and the two world wars. With The Huntress, Quinn returns to familiar ground. This riveting novel is set during WWII and the five years following the end of the war. Like The Alice Network, The Huntress features strong female characters who defy social norms, taking on jobs traditionally reserved for men and insisting on getting their due. It’s a long story that reads very […]

Dysfunction Junction

Sisters: A Novel by Daisy Johnson

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If you enjoy a novel with a questionable/unreliable narrator, then Sisters is for you. Clocking in at just over 200 pages, it is the kind of book you could get through in a day, and the plot is such that the reader will want to find out exactly what has happened and why. This makes it a little tricky to review without spoilers, but here we go. Teenagers July and September are sisters, with only 10-months difference in their ages. September is definitely the dominant […]



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