When she was 12 years old, Roxane Gay was gang-raped by a group of boys from school, one of whom was a boy she had sort of been dating and loved. After that, she set out to eat and eat until her body was a “fortress” that could protect her and couldn’t be hurt. This was interesting for me to read because of the multiple lenses through which I was viewing it. There was the psychologist part of me who had a sort of detached […]
Novel Within a Novel
Since I started Cannonball Read, I’ve tended to think, to varying degrees, about what I might write in a review as I’ve read each book. I didn’t do that much with this one, which I think is a testament to how engrossing it was. The main narrative frame is from the perspective of Iris Griffen (née Chase), a widowed woman in her 80s who has a heart condition and is trying to document her life before she dies: “It’s a slow race now, between me […]
A Bible for Cat Training
Cats are jerks. Don’t get me wrong – I have 3, they’re adorable, and I love them to pieces. Cats are rewarding pets, but there are definitely cat owners out there who would agree that it’s a good thing cats are cute because they can be obnoxious. I’m hoping this book will help with that. It’s phenomenal and wasn’t remotely dry, perhaps because I was thinking about how I could apply what I was reading to my own cats. I underlined a lot of the […]
Stories About Technology and Discovery
The e-book version that I got from my library was actually titled Arrival, with the note that it had been previously published as Stories of Your Life, and I got it because I wanted to read the story that the movie Arrival was based on, so I’ll start with that one. It’s titled “Story of Your Life,” and it’s good. I think the movie is better, which I don’t usually think, but I also don’t usually see the movie before reading the book. I don’t want to spoil […]
Wonderfully Creative
I really enjoyed this book. Coming in at under 150 pages, it’s a quick read, which is good because I just wanted to keep going, especially once the characters were on their journey to Camazotz. I recalled reading this novel twice before, once in elementary school when I didn’t really “get” it, and I don’t recall how I viewed it upon my second reading, but this time I got it (although I’m still not sure just how much tesseracts make sense to me as used […]
Dirk Gently Is at It Again . . . Sort of
This one started off much less confusingly (and weirdly) than the first book, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, though it didn’t necessarily end less confusingly. Part of the problem is that the ending seemed rushed, as though Adams were trying to get it done in a hurry, and he sacrificed quality and clarity to do so. Once again, the book doesn’t really seem to be about Dirk Gently, although he is a main character, and this time he doesn’t seem to do as much in terms of affecting […]