Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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What’s on the Other Side of the Door?

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

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CBR18BINGO: And (2nd book by this author) Nadia and Saeed live in a nameless, though apparently majority Muslim, country. As their city becomes a battleground between militants and the army, they discover a way out through magical doors that have been appearing throughout the planet, and through which refugees pour into various other countries. This leads to an opportunity for the book to explore themes of migration, assimilation, and anti-migration sentiment. I appreciated that Nadia and Saeed’s city and country are never named, allowing the book […]

A weird heartwarming story about dead people

Hotel Limbo V01 by Ben Harel

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Okay, Hotel Limbo V01 by Ben Harel….  What the h-e-double hockey sticks did I read? This is one confusing, wild, unusual and crazy book. In other words, it is a must read. Okay, readers. I cannot tell you the story. Sure I can but it then tells you everything you would experience and honestly you should go into this book with no preconceptions other than that it is a journey and experience. But I will say we deal with death. Except it’s funny. Until it […]

The Problem With Compliance

The Memory Policy by Yoko Ogawa

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The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa is a quiet, spare, literary tale of dystopia. While I can’t say I enjoyed reading this book, I can say that I think it’s very good. I found the book hard to enjoy for a couple of reasons. One, because it was very strange concept. Our unnamed narrator and her unnamed friends and family live on an unnamed island where things disappear. But, they disappear from people’s memories first, and then the people of the island get rid of the […]

Not-so-distant future

Identical by Leah Hayes

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Sometimes I read a book that makes me both love and hate it simultaneously. It is an emotional book that can make me ill. It is something that I both understand on a miniscule level and one where I can not understand it at all. Identical by Leah Hayes (read via an online reader, due mid September 2026) is one of those books. All my love goes to the minimal illustrations, as the story is too sad and thoughtful to think about. Things are artistic, […]

Magical Historical Fiction

The Antidote by Karen Russel

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From the afterword/Lost Land Acknowledgement by Dr. James Riding In: “The Antidote uses fantastical conceits to illuminate the holes in people’s private and collective memories, the willful omissions passed down generation to generation, and the myths that have been used by the U.S. government and White settlers to justify crimes against the citizens of Native Nations and the theft of Native lands.” And the author uses those fantastical conceits very well. The Antidote is a beautifully written, sad, interesting, and clever novel. It’s a fantastic […]

More (Magical) Real Than The Regime

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar

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  I’ve been thinking a lot about why I appreciate magical realism but fantasy does nothing for me. For me, it reaches truths that fantasy (and other genres) can’t quite grasp. It gives a voice to othered writers, be they minority writers or from the Global South, or more often than not, both. In the hands of a skilled writer, it can express deep emotions like grief, love, and those invisible bonds that link us across generations. It can feel like a folkloric tale, touching […]



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