Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Strong Concept, Uneven Writing

Burn Down Master's House by Clay Cane

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I really expected this book to be 5 stars and ended up mildly disappointed when it didn’t live up to that expectation. Clay Cane set out to write a slave narrative focusing on moments of rebellion. The novel is divided into 4 lengthy chapters, each of which focuses on 1-2 characters and the rebellion they pursue. It is a book filled with violence because the enslaved characters go through hell before bringing violent justice upon the enslavers. The plot carries the book, with the actual […]

Was It Really Friendship?

Mrs. Lincoln & Mrs. Keckley: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave by Jennifer Fleischner

Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave & Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

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  While noodling on the internet one day, I came across an article about Mary Lincoln’s personal dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. A former slave from Maryland who’d bought her own freedom, Keckley was a master mantua-maker who got herself the coveted position of dressmaker to the president’s wife. There was a little link at the bottom of the article about Keckley’s memoir, and it was too enticing to pass up. Happily, even though it was published in 1868, my library had a copy of it! The […]

A gripping time-travel slave narrative

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Kindred was our June Cannonball Read book club selection. I decided to read both the original novel by Octavia E. Butler and graphic novel adaptation by John Jennings and Damian Duffy. Both works focus on Dana, a young writer living in 1970s northern Los Angeles (much like Butler herself). She is recently married and moving into her new home with her older white husband, Kevin. They seem quite in love and happy. Dana is unpacking some books when suddenly and inexplicably she travels through time […]



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