Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Reverso Poems

Echo Echo: Reverso Poems About Greek Myths by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer and Josée Masse

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From Marilyn Singer: A reverso is a poem with two halves. In a reverso, the second half reverses the lines from the first half, with changes only in punctuation and capitalization — and it has to say something completely different from the first half. And they claim the right to say they invented the form. Okay, I’m a smidgen skeptical as you’re telling me in the thousands of years of poetry she is the first to think of this? But, you know what? Who cares […]

“Marriage was like death”

Secrets Beyond the Door by Maria Tatar

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You’ll notice a pattern: I’m deep-diving into crime and violence, in fairy tales and beyond. Secrets Beyond the Door is a book of essays exploring the Bluebeard fairy tale and its influence. People are really obsessed with this fairy tale! I guess I’m as guilty. The book starts with Charles Perrault’s 17th century version that popularized the tale, then goes through its evolution in gothic literature (Jane Eyre, Rebecca), twentieth century literature (Vonnegut, King), women’s perspectives (Carter), and how it crosses over with true crime. […]

Quirky is the World

qualo & Mage vs. the Rage of the Bakunawa: A Graphic Novel Volume 1 by Kara Bodegón-Hikino

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Quirky is the first word that comes to mind about Squalo & Mage vs. the Rage of the Bakunawa: A Graphic Novel by Kara Bodegón-Hikino. And then maybe silly, odd, not necessarily original but not derivative (okay, that’s a phrase). And maybe it is not the smoothest read, but it was a fun read nonetheless. It did its job by entertaining and (for me) was an easy read to give myself a break from all the difficult things I was reading. Yet there is enough […]

California fairy tale dreamin’

The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block

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The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block is an early 2000s reimagining of classic fairy tales set in “modern” Los Angeles. Block adapts nine of our most famous European fairy tales, each from the perspective of the young woman at its center. Some are narrated first-person and immediate, some are told in a more fable-esque tone. Each title is just a single word, and while some titles clearly indicate the tale they’re retelling, a couple are vague, which was fun to figure out […]

The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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I recently decided to re-read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (it was my choice for my book group). It was as fun as I remembered. Carter’s sexy takes on traditional fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Puss in Boots” is at times over-the-top in its prose, humor, and horror – which suits her feminist takes on damsels in all sorts of distress perfectly. She delivers a great vampire tale, “The Lady of the House of Love,” too.  But I think […]

Gnome for the holidays

Christmas Gnomes (Gnome for the Holidays) by Kelly Green and Lisa Alderson

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I was browsing through some titles the other day in an online catalog. I found Christmas Gnomes (Gnome for the Holidays) by Kelly Green and Lisa Alderson (illustrator). I did not know what the form was (and in fact, didn’t know the story) but knew I had to get it as a gift for my sister who is a gnome lover. In fact, she’s such a lover of the fuzzy capped beings that once I asked her if she minded me getting a gnome I […]



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