Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

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Reviews of The Handmaid’s Tale almost invariably start like a collective trauma memory: where were you when it happened? I was twenty-ish, an English major at a nearby university. I was taught how to analyse literature, but not how to consume it, how to distinguish it, and I don’t think we ever read this one for class. Needless to say, most of my professors were middle-aged men. I did read it, though, and it stuck with me; I read it again a few years later. […]

For the birds

Angel Catbird Vol. 1 by Margaret Atwood, Johnnie Christmas, Tamra Bonvillain

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Cbr15bingo strange worlds Yes, in this final month of CBR bingo I am in a rush to get as many squares checked off as possible. As a result, I am scouring our home bookshelves for anything that can help me fill in my remaining squares. Angel Catbird Volume 1 is a graphic novel that has been sitting on the shelf for years. I remember when it came out, I was kind of excited to see that Margaret Atwood had written it. I am a fan […]

“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there’s no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

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In another time or another headspace, I might have given this five stars. If I ever re-read, I probably will. Unfortunately, my brain was just not in the mood for a long, measured, thoughtful, historical literary fiction novel when I read this back in April (!). I should probably have done the audiobook instead. (Anyone know if it’s any good? I’ve never heard of the narrator before.) *Have I EVER been in the mood for a Margaret Atwood? 🤔 I somehow managed to read The […]

Twisted

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

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Oryx and Crake is the first installment in the Maddaddam trilogy, a dystopian future with a liberal dose of gene splicing at its core. The novel is told through the perspective of “Snowman”/Jimmy, a depressed man, clothed in a bedsheet, presiding over a gaggle of ‘Children of Crake’ – innocent genetically engineered people living in a ruined world. Through his reflections, with learn about Jimmy and the world that was. We learn of the red-hot gene splicing industry, creating smart Pigoons, delicious Chickienobs, and adorable […]

“There Is Never Only One, Of Anyone”

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

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Cat’s Eye is a story about friendship, family, memory, and, especially, trauma. It follows the life of Elaine from childhood through about age 50. Like The Blind Assassin, also by Margaret Atwood, this novel alternates between past and present and is primarily set in the past. Most of the novel occurs when Elaine is about age 8-10. Elaine and her parents and older brother had a nomadic lifestyle during Elaine’s early childhood. Her father is an entomologist who travels around looking at bugs. When Elaine […]

Margaret Atwood (3)

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

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“Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” This is a reread of Margret Atwood’s Booker Prize winning novel The Blind Assassin, which was published in 2000, a few years after Alias Grace. I first read it after reading The Handmaid’s Tale for a class, and then Oryx and Crake on my own, and while it has some science fiction within the walls of the novel, this was my first realization that Margaret Atwood wrote other kinds of […]



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