Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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How many ways are there to be tacky?

The Tacky South by Katherine A. Burnett, Monica C. Miller

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Popular scholarship seems to be kind of a newer genre; by this I mean essays by trained scholars that are scaled back a bit in terms of scope and depth, and done in styles that people without academic inclinations might find readable. Often, these kinds of works also tend to be on subject of interest to the general public that have something to do with popular culture. The Tacky South is one such collection. The authors of the various essays use sometimes rather different definitions […]

Bringing Life to the Story

The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman

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I’m not usually one to knock people’s tastes in problematic art. Chinatown is my all-time favorite movie and I’d be hard pressed to never watch it again. So it’s tough for me to judge. Which doesn’t mean that automatically immunizes me from criticism. I may be a “You do you” person but I also believe we should be critiquing our tastes at all time and remember that many of them come at a cost. I read Lolita when I was an 18-year old college freshman. I’d like to say […]

Controversial but compelling

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

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My Dark Vanessa is a complicated and controversial book- it is akin to a modern retelling of Lolita from Lolita’s perspective.  Oprah picked it for her book club (cbr12bingo!) and then dropped it when controversy arose- after American Dirt she maybe wasn’t keen for another controversial book so soon (FYI: the controversy was due to allegations that Russell had stolen the real life story of a Latina woman- since disproved via Russell disclosing her own childhood abuse). The story is a first person narrative that […]

terrific writing about terrible things

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

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Trigger Warning: please read the tags before deciding to read this review and/or book. If you feel that you can read this book, then you must. If you feel that you cannot, I will pass no judgement. Perhaps you have heard of the drama surrounding this release. American Dirt was climbing the charts and dominating the controversy  conversation when My Dark Vanessa tip-toed in and threw a hat into the ring. There was an implication of plagiarism from a woman who wrote a memoir about being groomed and […]

It’s gross you guys.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

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Lolita is a narrative that permeates pop culture, in advertisements, references and romanticizing of things that are not okay. This narrative probably originates from the 1997 film adaptation starring Jeremy Irons:   When I was a teenager this novel was a way to live out my own sexuality and confused feelings about adults around me. These adults were mostly male teachers making Humbert Humbert the perfect stand-in. However engaging with this story as an adult is a bit different. It’s gross you guys. Lolita is […]

Well that was….disturbing…

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

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 Going into this book, I knew of the general controversy surrounding it, but wasn’t really familiar with the specific plot details.  But I picked it up in a used book store on a whim because I was overdue for a classic, and I have a thing for Russian authors and literature (although I was disappointed that this didn’t actually take place IN Russia). I’m sure most people know the general gist of this book – middle aged man falls in love with a young girl. […]



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