Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Sweet, Ghibli-esque cottage core fantasy

Flowerheart by Catherine Bakewell

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What: Catherine Bakewell’s Flowerheart is a lovely coming into one’s power tale with Studio Ghibli vibes and a charmingly rustic setting,  It’s also a fairytale with wild magic, curses, witches and wizards.  Running through is the rebuilding of a childhood friendship that turns to romance. Who: Clara Lucas is a witch in training, about to turn sixteen, and afraid of her power.  Her magic surges in wild, and sometimes destructive, ways and is affected by her mood.  On the benign side flowers will spontaneously bloom in her […]

Just when you think you know everything…

The Girl From Guernica by Karen Robards

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I don’t recall why any longer, but the other day something sent me down a Kindle rabbit hole search for a specific Karen Robards book. There was a point in time when Ms. Robards was an automatic purchase for me – if I saw a new book on the rack at the grocery store or at Barnes & Noble, in the basket it went. Like many authors from the late 90s and early aughts for which I had this habit, she kind of fell off […]

“From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes / I waited ages to see you there”

Cassandra at the Wedding (1962) by Dorothy Baker

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I was going to make a few brief notes about this and then add this to my review roundup of the Monica Heisey and Curtis Sittenfeld books–and they sort of make a good triptych of more or less complicated women by women writers. But I ended up rambling a bit more about this one, and indeed, Cassandra of Cassandra at the Wedding is not so much complicated, or even messy, but a full on crucible of chaos and doubt and solipsism in human form, who […]

“And isn’t it just so pretty to think / All along there was some invisible string / Tying you to me?”

Really Good, Actually (2023) by Monica Heisey

Romantic Comedy (2023) by Curtis Sittenfeld

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Really Good, Actually (2023) by Monica Heisey I came across Monica Heisey on Caroline O’Donoghue’s podcast Sentimental Garbage, in an episode on ‘Break-Ups’, and then found out that Heisey had been a writer on Schitt’s Creek, which I love enough that I wrote an academic chapter on it and still managed to love it afterwards. Really Good, Actually, does not at all have a Schitt’s Creek vibe, which is good! We love a versatile creative type! It’s about Maggie and her post-divorce malaise at the […]

No Waves of Grain

Darker than Amber by John D. Macdonald

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Travis McGee and his trusted friend Meyer are fishing in a secluded location late one night when a car stops on the bridge overhead. Next thing they know a woman wearing cement shoes is thrown into the water and sinks to the bottom. Acting quickly, McGee is just barely able to get her out alive. Once she’s recovered from the shock, she tells them the shocking story. A beautiful young woman, Evangeline (“Vangie” to her friends) has been a prostitute since she was a teenager, […]

Delightful!

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookship by Hwang Bo-Reum

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Attention lovers of books and independent bookstores, this book is for you! Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a delightful story about a woman’s dream of opening a bookstore and how the store ends up transforming and healing not only her life but those who experience the store. The main character, Yeongju, basically has a mid-life crisis and abandons her old life (marriage, career) to open a small bookshop in a quiet neighborhood in Seoul. She knows nothing of opening or operating a store, but […]



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