Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Model Home by Rivers Solomon

Model Home by Rivers Solomon

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  I really loved Model Home. I think haunted house horror/mystery novels are my favorite thing out there. That’s because you are supposed to be safe with your family, Model Home shows that sometimes it’s your family and neighborhood you should fear. “Model Home” follows Ezri (they/them) and their daughter, Elijah, who are living in London. We find out quite quickly that Ezri has moments when they are not in themselves, that they are far away. Ezri longs for and loathes their mother and the […]

The burden and the gift of knowing one’s history

The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes

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The Deep is a novel inspired by a song by the rappers known as clipping  (Diggs, Hutson and Snipes). It is the story of Yetu, a 34-year-old wajinru (mer-person) who serves as her people’s historian, and of the burden that this vocation entails. It is also the story of the enslaved people of the Americas and of the trauma handed down through generations. The sea-dwelling people known as wajinru were born from a traumatic experience: their foremothers were land-dwelling women who had been enslaved and […]

Y’all Remember

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

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The novel The Deep was written by Rivers Solomon, but the origin of the story is actually more diverse. Drexciya, an experimental duo, created a sonic template for the story, which was expanded on by clipping. in a song titled “The Deep” and then transformed again into this short but extremely compelling novel. The story revolves around an imagined community of beings called wajinru, born of unimaginable tragedy. Imagine the real horror of pregnant women on slave ships, who were tossed overboard into the ocean […]

Sorrowland-Did Not Finish at 20 percent

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

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I ended up DNFing this book at 20 percent. I am sorry, but this is dragging. It doesn’t help that the book keeps jumping back and forth and I really don’t understand the cult that the main character, Vern was involved with. And I assume this is in a different time and place than our Earth? Once again, this book dragged and I just didn’t feel much like pushing past the 20 percent mark because everything felt so slow and I just started getting bored […]

What a rollercoaster…

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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So I didn’t know this book had been last year’s cannon book club pick until I just finished it about an hour ago and conflicted about how I felt about it, decided to search for reviews so I could read how other people felt about it. And WOW, guys. You did not disappoint. I read about 8 reviews and I almost feel like writing anything would be useless at this point because you have said it all. And I could easily just pick and choose […]

You should read this book even though I did not like it

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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Aster is low-deck woman on the spaceship Matilda. The citizens of Matilda are stratified across racial lines: darker people of color on the lower decks with lighter skinned citizens occupying the upper decks. As you might guess, the lower decks have increased police presence and poor living conditions. The upper decks have more freedom and significantly better quarters and living conditions. Sound familiar? The citizens of Matilda were long ago promised that they were on a journey to a new land, yet that promise seems further and further […]



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