Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Slow build up to a crazy bananapants ending

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Mexican Gothic is the story of Noemí Taboada, a 22 year old socialite in 1950s Mexico City. Noemí’s life is filled with parties, shopping, concerts, and a rotating cast of beaus. Despite having a sharp mind, no one except her father looks past her beautiful face. Noemí’s cousin Catalina married an English man named Virgil Doyle and moved to his family’s estate in the mountains the previous year. Catalina has sent Noemí’s father a disturbing letter claiming her husband is trying to poison her and […]

I’ll Definitely Be Reading More By This Author

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Bingo Square: Green (or Jade as a variation thereof) The e-book version of this was on sale back in January, and given my love of mythology, it seemed like the perfect time to try a new author and learn more about mythical figures outside the Greek and Roman pantheon. Still, the book sat quite a while before I finally picked it up. I quite enjoyed this novel – the writing style at first felt very matter of fact, in line with our no nonsense heroine, […]

a slight peek into the obscured past

Costalegre by Courtney Maum

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The concept of capital-A ART reigns lavishly above the characters within Costalegre. A woman and her daughter, stand-ins for Peggy and Pegeen Guggenheim, go to Mexico to wait out the steamroller of World War II. They are surrounded by the mother’s collection of artists and hangers-on. They wait for a steamship full of the mother’s collection of art which may still be creeping across the ocean towards their hideaway in the jungle. The mother’s collection is full of people and pieces deemed to be unworthy; Europe did […]

A beautiful murmur

The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia

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I bought this book, put it on my kindle, and then forgot about it.  I don’t know why I bought it–I’m sure it was someone’s recommendation, or a list of new books somewhere.  One day I found it again and started reading, having no idea what the book was about. This book was enchanting. Set in early 20th century Mexico, this is the meandering story of the Morales family and their adopted son Simonopio, who was found by old Nana Reja under a bridge, with […]

Viscerally Real

The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolaño

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The Savage Detectives is a lot. Being my second Bolaño doorstopper of the year, I assumed I knew what I was in for. I was way off. This was a far more challenging read than 2666. It had its rewards and I’m glad I stuck with it. But I needed to take a break halfway through, at the risk of putting it aside for good. I’m glad I did because the plot is not the most important thing going on here. This can possibly be considered a […]

Whew

2666 by Roberto Bolano

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This isn’t going to be a conventional review because I don’t know what to say about 2666 or really make of it. I know it’s an excellent novel; it felt like Bolaño was writing through me rather than to me. But to summarize it the way I normally do (plot, good points, bad points, summation) won’t do it justice. So this is going to be a grab bag of thoughts about a stirring, complex, difficult, beautiful, exhausting, breathtaking book. -The five story lines connected in a way […]



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