Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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One Flew Over A Magdalene Sister’s New Black

Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart

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  Nurse Ratched, George “Pornstache” Mendez, Sister Bridget. Institutional fiction relies on a specific archetype—the tyrannical gatekeeper—that can make or break the latest remix of the genre. In the case of Women of a Promiscuous Nature, Mrs. Maynard simply isn’t strong enough to enter that hall of villains. As a fictionalized account of the mass quarantine carried out against women during WWII, the novel focuses on a smaller ensemble than is typical for the genre. Our way in is through Ruth, who feels slightly anachronistic […]

“Thirty years ago, I lay in the room of a woman, conceived in a sexual act of rape, being carried during the prenatal period by an unwilling and rebellious mother, finally bursting from the womb only to be tormented in a family whose members I despised or pitied, and brought into association with people whom I never should have chosen.”

My First Thirty Years by Gertrude Beasley

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What a read. My First Thirty Years is the unvarnished and enraged truth of Gertrude Beasley’s life, and it deserves to be read. From the first line, which I’ve used as the title above, she is telling us to listen and to understand. In a country where a large chunk of the population is trying to revert us back to an idealized past, this is the actual truth of so much of that past. There is no magical historical moment where the nuclear family bubbled […]

“Sometimes it didn’t matter if you broke. You kept going. You weren’t given a choice.” (Bingo)

When a Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

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4.5 stars CBR16 Bingo: Dun Dun (From pretty much the first chapter, where Cordelia is “made obedient” there is a creeping sense of dread all the way through this novel) Cordelia knows her mother isn’t like other mothers. Other mothers can’t take over your limbs and puppet you, or force you to stay still and motionless for hours or days on end. Other mothers permit doors that can be closed in the house and let their daughters have friends. Other mothers don’t have a magical […]

B***h Barbecues Bad Guys

Broken Luna (Broken Trilogy Book 1) by Paulina Vasquez

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I always like rags to rage stories. I wanted to read a Cinderella-ish female  vindication story (with werewolves and lots more blood and violence) without having to guess what happens next. Don’t give me plot twists or surprises. I want to be able to say: “…gasp…oh no…she just happens to be more than meets the eye.” I also, in this instance, need a stereotypical  “real” man who knows he’s a man, who acts manly and saves her from un-manly evildoers…but still respects her as a […]

“Women were built to endure the rules men make.”

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

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I would think it a real challenge to make a story about women suffering under abusive husbands and the difficulties of living in the caste system in India incredibly funny, but this book managed to do that. The humor is dark, but the characters (mostly women) are authentic, interesting and very relatable as they try to navigate the world of men while finding ways to advocate for themselves in a world that doesn’t want them to do much at all. Geeta’s awful husband disappeared 5 […]

A very lovely romance about two complex people on the search for belonging

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn

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4.5 stars 15-word review: Trying to get some direction in her life, Georgie turns to a new-found teenage journal Longer review: Georgie is feeling adrift. She’s worked as a personal assistant for a number of industry people in L.A, and was really good at it. Now, however, her former boss decided to retire to the countryside and doesn’t need a P.A. anymore. Georgie is free to go home to her family to realise her own dreams, the only problem is, she has no idea what […]



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