Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About ElCicco

CBR 4
CBR 5
CBR 6
CBR 7
CBR 8
CBR 9
CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR18 Participant
CBR18 Levels

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:

“We need new songs.”

The Silence of the Girls: A Novel by Pat Barker

by 1 Comment

I recently reviewed Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles for CBR12 bingo, and I referred to it as a gateway into a genre I call “reimagined classics” or “classics fanfic”. The Silence of the Girls is yet another outstanding addition to this genre and it happens to overlap with The Song of Achilles, presenting several main characters and incidents from The Iliad from a very different perspective. Pat Barker imagines for us the life of Briseis, a Trojan princess who becomes Achilles’ slave. Through the […]

Kitchen Staple/Bingo Blackout

I’m Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown

by 4 Comments

Cbr12bingo How To, BINGO BLACKOUT I’ve had this book on the shelf for nearly 2 decades. It was published in 2002 (with a version 2 published in 2006), and I’m sure I got it soon after it came out. My husband and I were (and are) great fans of Alton Brown and loved “Good Eats” when it aired. We learned so much from Alton Brown, notably how to make the best chocolate chip cookies and how to make gravy from roux. Brown is an engaging […]

“No matter how much you give to this heart, it will never be enough.”

The Story of a Goat: A Novel by Perumal Murugan, trans. N. Kalyan Raman

by Leave a Comment

CBR12 bingo Reader’s Choice (substitute for White Whale) BINGO horizontal, Fresh Start to Book Club The Story of a Goat is a short novel by acclaimed Indian writer Perumal Murugan. Set amongst the poor farmers and herders of a small village, it provides the points of view of both an older couple and a small black goat named Poonachi as they struggle with the elements, bureaucracy, and the luck that fate throws at them. Like Orwell’s Animal Farm, The Story of a Goat is a commentary […]

“Elwood received the best gift of his life on Christmas Day 1962, even if the ideas it put in his head were his undoing.”

The Nickel Boys: A Novel by Colson Whitehead

by Leave a Comment

Cbr12bingo Cannonballer Says, BINGO x2: vertical Red to Money, horizontal Cannonballer Says to Adaptation For the second year in a row, my Cannonballer Says square is filled with a book reviewed by TeresaElectro! Last year it was Rebecca Roanhorse’s excellent Trail of Lightning. This year it’s Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Nickel Boys. Four years ago I reviewed Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, which was an amazing tour de force dealing with American history and American racism. The Nickel Boys is another clear-eyed, no-punches-held look […]

“At the barn fire of insanity”

The Luckiest Guy Alive by John Cooper Clarke

by Leave a Comment

Cbr12bingo Repeat (for Pandemic) BINGO x2: vertical Uncannon to Repeat, horizontal Money to Violet Over the past seven months of pandemic quarantining, my husband and I have done a lot of mindless TV/video watching, and thanks to the smart TV, we aren’t just limited to regular TV fare but can watch anything that’s on the internet on our big screen. As a result, we seem to have subscribed to, and hence watch, more YouTube channels than anything else. We are big fans of British comedian […]

“People can be unpredictable in their cruelty.”

Real Life: A Novel by Brandon Taylor

by 1 Comment

Cbr12bingo Debut BINGO diagonal, Money to Music Brandon Taylor’s debut novel Real Life has been nominated for a Booker Prize. Warning: contains scenes of violence, rape, abuse Real Life is the excellent debut novel from Brandon Taylor, nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize. Taylor shows the effect of memory, the past and racism on one man’s life. The setting is a mid-western university at the end of summer, and the protagonist Wallace is a graduate student who is gay and Black. The action takes place over […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo