Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Were I to Pull Every Line that Made Me Gasp I Would be Quoting the Book in its Entirety

The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt

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I’d lick my lips, slowly, letting my pink tongue dangle out of my black mouth a little just like some animal waiting by the side of the road for the driver who killed it to come back one more time and kill it again This collection is stitched together with muscle, sinew, and blood. Samantha Hunt writes in a way that tears apart beautiful language and forces you to read the story through twisted entrails like a time-forgotten seer. The tales are modern in theme […]

Nonetheless, I still want to be a lighthouse keeper

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

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I read Ahab’s Wife at an impressionable age and it filled me with a deep hatred of whales (unfair to them, I know) and a fierce desire to be a lighthouse keeper. Despite many things keeping me from a serious pursuit of such an endeavor (I keep moving further and further away from the ocean, the aforementioned hatred of whales, my reliance on the internet…) I will always jump at the chance to read something lighthouse adjacent. The Light Between Oceans starts off strong- a quiet and […]

What I feel is relief. It wasn’t me.

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Welp, I just picked up The Handmaid’s Tale this afternoon, and finished it in one sitting. Not because I couldn’t put it down, but because I absolutely refused to stop, let it percolate, and dare to wonder at what could be coming. Honestly, it’s too believable. I knew that it would be; you can’t avoid talk of the story these days. But it’s strikingly real, and for that reason, downright horrifying. I never caught myself picking apart the believability, or the potential. This is dystopian fiction […]

A gorgeous series of novellas on the clash between old and new India

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This collection of three novellas by, arguably, the greatest living Indian writer was a revelation for me. I have never read Desai’s works before and was blown away by the gorgeous tapestry of colors, smells, textures and sights she evoke with her writing. In this collection, she draws on the same themes of art and culture clash to draw out different but overlapping messages about change and stagnation, without necessarily championing one over the other.   In the novella of the title, we are introduced […]



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