Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A witchin’ re-imagining

Circe by Madeline Miller

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Oh, how I loved this.  I saw everyone’s glowing comments on it on last year’s Cannonball Read, but my TBR pile was so big I couldn’t justify buying a new book.  Luckily I made an exception and once I picked it up last week I couldn’t put it down.  I have a backlog of reviews I need to write for other books I finished before I finished Circe, but I wanted to review this one first, before my feelings faded. Miller’s novel is a modern re-imagining of the life of Circe, the mythical Greek witch who pops up in the […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

  • Circe by Madeline Miller

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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7/29/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:29 |

Sometimes the stories we know are actually just the footnotes in another (better) story.

Circe by Madeline Miller

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I picked this up because I was seeing it evvvvverywherrrre.  I had low expectations because I am a contrarian and, in general, I don’t trust people’s opinions of books (except for Pajiba readers’, of course.)  But this book was so good!  It immediately became my new buy-it-for-everybody’s-birthday book. First, this book has it all: mythology, complex heroines, curses, potions, love, betrayal, exotic lands, gods and humans, bloodshed, magic, and monsters.  It also has an awesome female protagonist, “empowered” in the best way, by which I mean she has agency in the narrative itself, and in the very fact that Miller […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

  • Circe by Madeline Miller

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Sometimes the stories we know are actually just the footnotes in another (better) story."

7/28/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:4 |

“Maybe the real question is why are your friends so turn-into-pigsable?” BINGO

Circe by Madeline Miller

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#CBR11 Bingo: Remix  (Would also work for Award Winner, Listicle (was on a ton of Best of 2018 lists) and/or Cannonballer Recommends) Official book description: In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft. When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

  • Circe by Madeline Miller

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "“Maybe the real question is why are your friends so turn-into-pigsable?” BINGO"

7/23/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:51 |

The truth is, men make terrible pigs

Circe by Madeline Miller

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I knew almost nothing of Circe before going into this. I remembered that she was in The Odyssey, and that Odysseus lived on her island for a time, but nothing more than that. She is the daughter of Helios, and is an unremarkable and naive nymph. Shunned by her siblings and dismissed by her parents, she finally discovers that her power lies in witchcraft. Because of this, and for how she uses it, she is exiled for eternity by her father to an uninhabited island. She (spoilers) learns to harness her power in a way her more powerful siblings do […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

  • Circe by Madeline Miller

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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5/19/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:7 |

Circe – Mic Drop

Circe by Madeline Miller

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My knowledge of Greek mythology is minimal: I know only the broadest of strokes. I mean, I’ve read the Odyssey (bits of it at least?) and I’ve seen “O Brother Where Art Thou.” I was a bit skeptical that I would enjoy this book, but it had such rave reviews and a lot of ladies I know really enjoyed it, so I joined the pack and I’m glad I did. In fact, not really knowing about mythology made it even more fun to read and preserved the twists and turns of the story. Circe is the daughter of Helios, the […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

  • Circe by Madeline Miller

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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5/17/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:18 |

A (not so) funny thing happened on the way to writing this review

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I was finally caught up with my reviews at the end of March, and then everything went to hell. I spent a week in Paris (yay!) but came home to what I thought was a simple but nasty case of jetlag + airplane cold but which turned out to be . . . THE FLU. And let me just say that jetlag and three days of crazy-loud home repairs and several days of high fever/chills/aches/lungs-filled-with-pure-evil are not conducive to being productive. Moral of the story: get your flu shot, kids.  I finished Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles five weeks […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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5/5/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:20 |

I came for the fighting, but stayed for the sweet, sweet love

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I’m closer to 40 than I am 30, and I’ve never read The Iliad. I did, however, read The Odyssey in middle school, and quite liked it – though poetry has never been my thing, and the archaic formatting of the translation I read bothered me. Still. It was a good story, and I was in the florescence of my love for heroic fantasy, so The Odyssey kind of felt like the genesis for the types of stories I was reading at the time. So it’s a little surprising, all these years later, that I never picked up The Iliad. […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:6 |

The man, the myth, the legend

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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This is a version of the myth told by Patroclus, Achilles’s companion. Patroclus is a prince who accidentally kills another boy and is exiled, fostered to King Peleus whose son is Achilles. Initially feeling like an outsider, something about Patroclus catches Achilles’s eye and they become friends. When Achilles is sent to train with the centaur Chiron, Patroclus goes with him, against Achilles’s goddess mother, Thetis’s wishes. They spend a few glorious years cut off from the world, and their relationship deepens. Eventually they fall in love. Then Helen is stolen, or runs away with Paris by her own volition, […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "The man, the myth, the legend"

4/1/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:14 |


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