Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Their Eyes is a 1930s novel that is still entirely relevant today

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

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I don’t know why it took me this long to read this book. It was lyrical beauty. Their Eyes Were Watching God follows Janie Crawford through her three marriages in the 1930s South all while she explores her own sense of self, her identity, and her relation to her community. The dichotomy of dialogue and prose narration and description is a marvel. The dialogue is written in a Southern dialect full of life and energy. While it might take some time getting used to (unless you’re […]

If Big Little Lies Met To Kill A Mockingbird

The Night the Lights Went Out by Karen White

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I can’t claim the title of this review as my own. The cover of The Night the Lights Went Out features a pull quote from a review stating, “If Big Little Lies met To Kill a Mockingbird.” As much as I love Karen White’s books, I instantly thought, “Yeah, right.” I’m pleased to say I was wrong. This book is pure entertainment. I couldn’t put it down. I get the reticence to compare a beach-y read to a literary classic, but let’s roll with it this […]

“The tricky thing about giving opinions is that sometimes they cost you more than you wanted to spend.”

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

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Jo Kuan and her father figure Old Jin have gotten by pretty well, considering they are Chinese Americans in the deep South of 1890.  Old Jin works as a horse caretaker for a local wealthy family, and Jo has a talent for millinery, so she is hopeful for an apprenticeship at the shop she works.  However, she is abruptly fired one day due to her supposed overly-frank attitude with customers (“You make the customers uncomfortable”).  Old Jin is able to get her a position as […]

Sweet tea in book form

Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber

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With three days to go before vacation I had nothing lined up for my annual beach read. Thankfully, right before I left I received an ARC copy of Heather Webber’s new book Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe. Many of us are familiar with the source material of that is at the kernel of this novel. All you need to do is search the section of your brain that stores childhood nursery rhymes  and up will pop the following: “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket […]

A Southern Gothic fail

Lookaway, Lookaway by Wilton Barnhardt

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This was a weird book. I mean, a lot of so-called Southern literature is weird – that’s why I love it so – but even by those standards, this was a weird book. Jerene Jarivs Johnston is old money Charlotte. Jerene’s brother is the stereotypical boozy washed up novelist, found most afternoons at the bar at the club sipping his bourbon neat, her sister Dillard is a near shut-in, and her husband Duke is a failed politician, his career having been derailed by Jerene herself […]



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