Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Secret-laden family reunions: My favorite genre!

The Arsonist's City by Hala Alyan

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I’m a sucker for stories about families. This one is especially easy to get lost in. Throw together some siblings and yet-to-be discovered love affairs, add in a dose of grief, maybe a dash of a real estate as plot device (will they or won’t they sell this home that is also a very literal depiction of their heritage?) – I AM SO DOWN FOR THAT BOOK. And by THAT book I mean THIS book – The Arsonists’ City, by Hala Alyan, was a great […]

Remembering for both of them.

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There are many ways to approach a review of this book.  “Salt Houses” is about a  family constantly displaced through the generations by war. It is about the loss of a cultural identity and the struggle to find one. It is about finding who you are and being true to yourself no matter how difficult it may be for those around you. I prefer to think of it as a love story. Steeped in the conflicts of the Middle East from after World War II […]

I need to go back to school

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One of the most wonderful things about the public library is the deliciously broad catalog it offers. There are so many books I would never have encountered, and I would be less for it. I tend to prefer genre fiction (sci fi and fantasy) and prefer the welcoming ease of young adult over challenging myself in my “me” time. But the library? I have to wait so long and then they’re only available for a short time and that creates this awesome urgency that means […]

A lovely and devastating debut novel

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I was library-shopping after a LONG week at school, when I stumbled upon Hala Alyan’s novel Salt Houses. I read the blurb and was instantly intrigued. I’ve been trying to read more works about Muslims from a variety of ethnic and national backgrounds, and reading about Palestine presented a double interest to me. This is a well-written and engaging novel, with a historical scope that reminds me a little of Homegoing. On her wedding weekend, Alia’s mother reads her fortune and predicts a life of […]

The Persistence of Memory

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Salt Houses is Hala Alyan’s first novel, but not her first book. She is a published poet with a doctorate in psychology, and in Salt Houses, she demonstrates both her beautiful way with words and her remarkable ability to delve into the psyches of the members of one family. Each character in this book has his/her own unique voice and way of seeing the world. And that world changes from generation to generation, quite literally, as they are forced to move from one city and […]



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