Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Unspeakable pain, unspeakable loneliness

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

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Decades ago, when I first heard the term “footbinding,” I thought it simply meant that the feet of Chinese girls were wrapped tightly to keep them small and delicate. Then when I learned that there was much more to it than that, I realized it was awful but didn’t give it much more thought. After reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which goes into detail about how girls as young as 5 or 6 were subjected to the practice, I’m truly horrified. If you […]

“Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together.”

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See

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My local library has us go around in a circle and sum up the book in one word (Or a few words, I mean, they aren’t strict about it and sometimes one word just won’t do!) and my word for this one was “unrelenting” because I found it to be one of the toughest reads I’ve gone through in a while. That’s not to say it isn’t a good book, it is but, it’s about being a woman in China in the 1400s so there […]

Fascinating novel set amongst little known culture

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

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The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane follows Li-Yan, a young woman from the Akha ethnic minority in Yunnan China.  Born shortly after the cultural revolution, she comes of age as China is changing rapidly.  When she becomes pregnant at 16, like so many other women in China at this time she abandons her newborn daughter at an orphanage.  The story follows Li-Yan and her family in China as she gains an education and helps her community modernize while still retaining their values, and also follows […]

“Every woman who enters the sea carries a coffin on her back.”

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

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I had never heard of it, but when my book club chose The Island of Sea Women (2019) by Lisa See, I was excited to read it. The ones who had already read it mentioned that there was some very graphic violence, which is helpful to know if you prefer not to read that sort of thing. I’m glad my book club chose this historical novel. It was well-written and gave me a glimpse into a time and culture that I knew nothing about. Interestingly, I have […]

Remarkable women in a remarkable time

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

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Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, especially when it teaches me about a piece of history or culture that was previously unknown to me. Pair that with beautiful writing, strong female characters, and a moving story, and you have a 5-star novel. The Island of Sea Women tells the story of two girls, Young-sook and Mi-ja, from the South Korean island of Jeju. Mi-ja is an orphan living with her aunt and uncle and, because her father allegedly collaborated with the Japanese, is an […]

This one IS a novel

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Turns out I am very bad about learning much about the book I am going to read. There have been two books so far this year that I assumed would be novels, only to learn a handful of pages in that they were in fact nonfiction. Then there’s The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, which I thought would be nonfiction and was, go figure, a novel. In my defense, it was one of two books recommended simultaneously by my mother and the other, Killers of the Flower […]



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