Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“My great-grandfather was a boxing champion…and I can’t stop sparring ghosts.”

Heavyweight by Solomon J. Brager

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The back cover copy called Heavyweight “provocative,” which I felt was a bit much. Then I found myself getting provoked, which was amusing to me. Heavyweight is a graphic memoir that is ostensibly an attempt to find out the history of Brager’s great-grandfather Erich Levi, but expands beyond that into an examination of how history is portrayed and passed down, inequality, gentrification, colonialism, racism, and so on. There is a big focus on research and what the limits are of what research can provide us. It’s a sweeping […]

Indigenous family demons

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

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White Horse intrigued me with its mysterious cover. It follows Kari, an indigenous woman living in Colorado who is haunted by her past. Or rather her lack of a past because her mother disappeared shortly after she was born. Her dad was stricken by grief and ended up in a car accident. Kari spent much of her life resenting her mom and being a caretaker. After some struggles with drugs, she has gotten her life together.  She hangs with her best friend and cousin Debby, […]

Family History and Mysteries

Tangleroot by Kalela Williams

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Gosh, where to start with this book. Tangleroot opens with Noni being forced to give an opening speech to introduce her mother, Radiance, as the new president of Stonepost college, but the speech has been edited because Radiance is pushing to have the college renamed after their ancestor, Cuffee Fortune, who built and opened the college. Noni isn’t able to finish the speech and accidentally hot mics her mom when she reiterates that she didn’t want to the speech. Radiance is a force, and she’s […]

A Family History

Seven Aunts by Staci Lola Drouillard

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Author Drouillard tells the history of her family in recent generations through the lives of her seven aunts, four on her mother’s side and three on her father’s. I’ve always been interested in family histories, because no two are the same – that, and that there are generally a lot of secrets to uncover and I am a nosy sort of person. The fact that Seven Aunts is so wholeheartedly focused on the lives of the women in the family, tracing their parallels and divergences, made it […]

An interesting read about a white man coming to terms with his slave-owning family history.

Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

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I’d never heard of this until vel veeter’s review last year, but then immediately put it on my TBR as it sounded really interesting. And it was interesting! For the most part. Large parts were a slog. It also didn’t really do what I wanted it to do, except in the preface, which was written in 2014 and not included in the original publication. Edward Ball descends from the Ball family, wealthy plantation owners and people responsible for enslaving thousands of Black people over two […]



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