Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


We were merely freshmen (and sophomores)

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

Either / Or by Elif Batuman

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CBR Bingo – two books, one square (and a Bingo!) – adapt, because that’s what we’re all trying to do in college I read The Idiot and Either/Or back to back, so it felt more like a single, longer volume than reading two separate books. Based on Goodreads reviews, some felt that the tone in the second book was a bit different – that wasn’t my experience, but again, back to back reading might help  with the feeling of consistency. I think that’s an important note because the […]

Fiction Reviews Dump

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chain

Another Place You've Never Been by Rebecca Kauffman

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See by Juliann Garey

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Dietland by Sarai Walker

A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler

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Apologies in advance, and I hope I can be forgiven for the end-of-the-year review dump. I’ve had bits and pieces to say about the books I read but it never felt well-formed enough to tell others about them. So, here we go, a review dump of some of the fiction I read this year.  A Good Neighborhood |  Therese Anne Fowler We’ve all been reading long enough to know that a book titled A Good Neighborhood is not actually about a good neighborhood. It’s about […]

An amazing sight, someone you’re infatuated with trying to fish something out of a jeans pocket.

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This novel is not a retelling of the Dostoyevsky novel…I mean, I think…I haven’t read it yet. But what this book is, apparently, a kind of roman a clef, supported by the biographical details that overlap with Elif Batuman’s own, but also her own interviews in which she talks about the thin lines between fiction and nonfiction. The novel is about a young Turkish-American woman from New Jersey’s first year at Harvard as an academically gifted and academically intelligent young woman who is emotionally unready […]



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