Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Committing it to ink makes it truer.”

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

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This was a warm blanket of a macabre fantasy Romance about life, death, and making yourself actually live your life that I devoured in a day and have spent nearly a week searching my mind for how to review. There are a couple things that have held up the writing, one that it’s a weird book that is both very straightforward in its description but the minute you scratch at its surface it gets quite difficult to nail down, and second that this is a […]

I Wish I Could Read Japanese

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

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One of my friends brought Kitchen back from her study-abroad to Japan in the mid 00s. I was woefully non-diverse in my reading at the time, so my first read of this book in 2008 was mostly vague and unaware. It left no impression. I didn’t even remember I owned it until re-shelving a bunch of books from packing boxes this spring. An MFA and six years of CBR diverse reading under my belt later, this read was a vastly different experience, the most striking of […]

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”

I Would be Doing this Anyway by Jia Tolentino

Rewards by Emma Cline

Crewelwork by Justin Torres

The Tomorrow Box by Curtis Sittenfeld

If You Are Lonely and You Know It by Yiyun Li

The Summer House by Cristina Henriquez

Me and Carlos by Tom Perrotta

Simplexity by Kiley Reid

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Ahh, Lester Bangs. Or at least, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs via Cameron Crowe in Almost Famous. Did I just grab this quote because it features the word “currency”? Well…yes and no. Currency, my latest dive into Amazon Original Stories (but not the latest collection released) describes itself as being about “friends, trends, and dividends”. The link between these eight stories is the currency between people; social, professional, and personal transactions made when money is too much to offer or not enough to cover. The players […]



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