Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You can’t know the weather in store, the size of the waves. All in this strange eventful history is uncertain.”

This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

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I love a multigenerational family tale, one that sweeps across history and continents. And in that, this novel succeeds, with lovely writing, to boot. The story of the Cassar family is a fictional version of Messud’s own history, and hinges on the point at which her French Algerian family grapples with the history (and future) of colonialism around World War II. Messud’s own great grandfather wrote an in-depth family history, which would later take Messud (and her fictional counterpart within this novel) 20 years to […]

I always thought I’d get farther. I’d like to blame the world for what I’ve failed to do

The Woman Upstairs; Family Matters; The Library Book; The Blank Wall; The Summer before the Dark; Those Who Knew; Ways of Disappearing; White Fragility; Call them by their True Name; Harbor Me by Claire Messud; Rohinton Mistry; Susan Orlean; Elisabeth Sanxay Holding; Doris Lessing; Idra Novey; Robin Diangelo; Rebecca Solnit; Jacqueline Woodson

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The Woman Upstairs – 2/5 Stars I found this book because of a list listing “Famous angry women in books” or something. And it’s true that the lead character and narrator of this book is very angry. I was hoping she’d be angrier and less articulate about her anger in this book. What’s this book about? It’s about a woman in her early 40s who was an artist who is also an elementary school teacher. She becomes friends with the mom of one her students. […]

The Woman Upstairs. You wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.

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This novel appeared on several 2013 “best novels” lists and it seems to fit into a genre that’s very popular these days, featuring a narrator whose truthfulness and mental well being are unclear. As I read, I was reminded of novels like The Other Typist and The Dinner, but The Woman Upstairs carves out its own place. The narrator comes across as abrasive yet sympathetic, a flawed human deserving compassion and yet somewhat self-involved, too. This contradiction compelled me to stay with the story and find out […]



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