Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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And the daughter who had no choice but to keep them all out of jail

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto

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Ma’s hand flies to her mouth again. “Did I get boy killed because I say I want to eat his eggplant?”― Jesse Q. Sutanto, Dial A for Aunties This is the story of a loyal daughter, who accidentally murders her date, and the group of aunties who have no choice but to help her cover up the crime while running an over-the-top Indonesian Chinese wedding. It’s Dial A for Aunties. I bought this book while on vacation. Although I didn’t read it until I got […]

Dangled and Suspended in America

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

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First review ever and a confession! As a recovering humanities graduate student, I’m using CB14 as a way to re-teach myself how to read for pleasure, though that phase sits uncomfortably with me. I’m not sure ‘reading for pleasure’ really covers the full scope of what reading used to do for me and what I hope it will do in the future. The feeling of pleasure doesn’t capture at all what I experienced after finishing Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, and that […]

“I have learned that sometimes the simplest things are the hardest things to say. That sometimes there is no word for what you feel, no word in any language.”

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

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I read Jasmine Warga’s debut My Heart and Other Black Holes in 2016, and its one of the books that has stayed with me most as it contained some of the truest descriptions of being a teenager that I have ever read. When I was hunting for a book to fulfill the Muslim Middle Grade novel task for the Reading Women challenge and came across Warga’s name I decided that Other Words for Home would be the book I read, without looking any further into […]

“The space between two shores is the ocean and being caught in between feels like drowning.”

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen

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A new forever favorite! If you like your fairy tales dark, and reading other cultural versions of them, read this book! If you like your graphic novels lush, detailed, and darling, read this book! If you like compelling family stories, immigrant stories, and queer characters, read this book! In the forefront of Trung Le Nguyen’s graphic novel is the story of a middle schooler named Tiên who is quietly dealing with coming out and his crush on a friend.  Alongside that is his mother’s story, […]

Unfortunately this one falls short for me

Sakina's Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi

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In trying to get out of my reading slump I went back to my old Audible library to see what was hanging out there that I hadn’t listened to yet. One of the books there was Sakina’s Restaurant by Aasif Mandvi. I thought I was getting a straightforward short story not a recording of a one man show, and that effected my experience, I think. There’s a way you tell a story when you are going to be in front of an audience versus when […]

We all find refuge any place we can.

Refuge by Dina Nayeri

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Refuge is, appropriately, about the places we seek refuge: partnerships, houses, families, communities, meals, spaces.  The narrative is mostly about Niloo, a young Iranian-American who emigrated to the U.S. with her mother and brother in the 80s.  Niloo’s father, a dentist with a proclivity for opium, remained in Iran.  Niloo is now a 30 year old living in Amsterdam and married to a French dude who by all accounts adores her, and her father is divorcing his third wife and apparently interested in rekindling some […]



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