Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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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. […]

First world problems getting you down? Try Tehran

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

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On a scale of Donald Drumpf to Samantha Power (United States Ambassador to the United Nations) regarding my knowledge of the geopolitical landscape, I would rate somewhere in the middle, as I had to Google to figure out who to herald as an example of someone very well knowledgeable regarding world events, but I knew what the word “geopolitical” meant.  That being said, I wasn’t terribly familiar with the history and current events of Iran, and this memoir was a stark look at what it […]



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