Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

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I loved each of these finely drawn, often heart breaking vignettes of Black women. When we think of secret lives, we often think of sex – and there’s plenty of that in this book, but as in life, sex means so much more for each of these women. There’s a daughter, stealing moments of pleasure with a married man in a hospice parking lot while their mothers are inside. There’s a daughter, learning how to take crumbs and make them into a whole damn pie. […]

https://cannonballread.com/2022/02/the-secret-lives-of-church-ladies-booktrovert/

Secret-laden family reunions: My favorite genre!

The Arsonist's City by Hala Alyan

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I’m a sucker for stories about families. This one is especially easy to get lost in. Throw together some siblings and yet-to-be discovered love affairs, add in a dose of grief, maybe a dash of a real estate as plot device (will they or won’t they sell this home that is also a very literal depiction of their heritage?) – I AM SO DOWN FOR THAT BOOK. And by THAT book I mean THIS book – The Arsonists’ City, by Hala Alyan, was a great […]

Four words: Possessed Nun Fights Demons

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

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I picked up Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson sort of by accident. I remember thinking the plot and general world sounded interesting. What I didn’t realise until after the fact was that I had read both of Rogerson’s previous novels and really enjoyed them. Of the three, Vespertine is definitely my favourite. It’s very much a standard YA fantasy plot, with a late-teens Chosen One discovering world-saving powers.  In this case, Artemisia is a seventeen-year-old Gray Sister, an order of nuns who are responsible for laying the dead […]

First mixed bag of the year!

Love Story by Erich Segal

In Bluebeard's Castle by George Steiner

Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

Masscult and Midcult by Dwight Macdonald

Running Dog by Don Delillo

Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowksi

Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe

War in Val D'orcia by Iris Origo

Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg by Joshua Chamberlain

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Love Story – 2/5 What do you say about a 50 year novel that feels dead on arrival? This is the novel that became the movie that is often referenced, and seldom watched. The novel is fine. It’s depressingly fine. Our narrator goes to Harvard, meets a girl, they get married, he goes to law school, she gets sick, and she dies. In the middle he loves her father, because he hates his father. His parents mildly but not so mildly disown him (lucky), and […]

Death can’t stop any of these characters

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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TW for this review and the book: murder, suicide, discussion of death of both people and pets. Author TJ Klune also includes a similar warning at the very beginning of the book which I greatly admire. Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s reading more. Maybe it’s just accepting my own emotions, but Cannonball Read has made a liar out of me. Books never used to make me cry. Rarely even tear up. I would feel things, sure. But not cry. That was a response strictly reserved […]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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I have heard about this book for the past couple of years. I wanted to go back to read it because outside of Daisy Jones and the Six (audio version) I haven’t been able to get into Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books that much. I think my main problem is that with a lot of her work, when she’s writing about people of color, it just feels off in a way. I also thought that the greatest love of Evelyn’s life was self absorbed and manipulative. […]



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