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Cannonball
Kelsey Wroten’s Cannonball fires the reader straight into the messy life of Caroline Bertram: aspiring writer, queer, art school graduate, near alcoholic, and self proclaimed tortured genius. Wroten tells the story of an artist struggling with the arrival of adulthood and the Sisyphean task of artistic fulfillment. Stunningly drawn in a classic style, with big truths and biting wit, Wroten’s debut graphic novel is Art School Confidential for the Tumblr generation.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2019
24 people are currently reading
1950 people want to read
About the author
Kelsey Wroten
14 books35 followersKelsey Wroten is a Brooklyn based freelance illustrator and comics artist. She earned a BFA in Illustration from The Kansas City Art Institute in 2015. Kelsey has worked with clients including The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, Lucky Peach, Vice, Slack, and many others. She has multiple Society of Illustrators awards and has been featured in It's Nice That, Vice, Made in the Middle, Illustration Age, and more. She lives with her partner Allyson, their cat Maggie, and her Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series DVD box set.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 221 reviews
June 8, 2019
Yes, Caroline is unlikeable. It's not her unlikeability that makes this book a slog for me though. None of the characters are likeable. None of the dialogue, situations, or plot progressions feel realistic. The narrative felt like a vehicle for Caroline's countless monologues about selling out, what qualifies as "real art", and why her struggle makes her more authentic. She's unlikeable, but she also feels two-dimensional. She feels like a caricature of a hipster, art school millennial. Her parents feel like caricatures of baby boomers. The book feels like a caricature of self obsession disguised as imposter syndrome.
May 3, 2019
“I have a sort of axe to grind with representation. I won’t write a comic without queer characters. After I began living on my own, I found a group of other lesbian and queer-identifying people who became a second family to me. When I needed help with life, those were the people I went to”--Kelsey Wroten in interview with VICE
Kelsey Wroten’s graphic novel Cannonball is an at turns exhilarating and exasperating depiction of Caroline Bertram, a queer art school graduate in her early twenties who both wants to be loved and wants to be let alone. She both wants and loathes fame. She's both arrogant and self-loathing. She hates and castigates basically everything in her little Tazmanian Devil path. Her particular queer millennial malaise feels both quite now and also timelessly, irritatingly slacker for any age. And I could not put it down for some reason.
Let’s see if I can get at why, since I am not remotely in the target audience for this book, and I am not yet convincing you to read it. Caroline’s post-school fiction-writing is kind of stalled, and she spends most of her time not supporting herself, Wanting to Be An Artist, hanging out with her one (astute) friend, drinking heavily, berating almost everyone and anything she meets. Does this sound at all inviting to you yet? Okay, let me try again.
Caroline, who is consistently self-destructive, is really into a female wrestler named Cannonball. She is herself at times Cannonball, as in blasting into everything, fired from a cannon. She’s writing a YA novel which seems to reflect some of her own angst and still youthful (but no longer really innocent) yearnings. We jump as things proceed from Cannonball to sc fi YA novel to her own life and the connections between these things begin to help us understand her, but we don't like her much. The self-destructive path continues its downward spiral as inexplicably, Caroline receives a major YA award for the book she publishes, which pushes her over the edge, instead of soothing her anxieties and self-loathing. Success actually makes things much worse, which makes one dimension of this work a commentary on fame, I guess.
The character who stands for us is her friend who tells her exactly what she needs to hear. That’s where we find the exhilaration, ironically, in the art school crowd, in what I gradually come to see as spot-on, articulately (and I guess I have to name the tone, finally) satirical dialogue. Yep, I have to read this as a kind of dark satire in places. Art School Confidential. A touch of Whit Stillman (Metropolitan) social criticism but with the gloves off, with breakdown rage against—what?—everything.
This is not a book to necessarily “like” because most people (unless they are self-important young artists or those who loathe them) will not “love” this world, but it is one to admire for capturing a particular zeitgeist (do people still use this word?!). It’s a pretty long and substantial book, and I recommend maybe especially twenty-somethings checking it out. I'd like to group it with other slacker twenties books/series like Giant Days (okay, this is still in uni), Simon Hanselman's Megg, Mogg and Owl series, Scott Pilgrim. Or all the I Hate Art School comics books.
This is a review with a ten page excerpt, if you want to check it out:
https://themillions.com/2019/04/panel....
Kelsey Wroten’s graphic novel Cannonball is an at turns exhilarating and exasperating depiction of Caroline Bertram, a queer art school graduate in her early twenties who both wants to be loved and wants to be let alone. She both wants and loathes fame. She's both arrogant and self-loathing. She hates and castigates basically everything in her little Tazmanian Devil path. Her particular queer millennial malaise feels both quite now and also timelessly, irritatingly slacker for any age. And I could not put it down for some reason.
Let’s see if I can get at why, since I am not remotely in the target audience for this book, and I am not yet convincing you to read it. Caroline’s post-school fiction-writing is kind of stalled, and she spends most of her time not supporting herself, Wanting to Be An Artist, hanging out with her one (astute) friend, drinking heavily, berating almost everyone and anything she meets. Does this sound at all inviting to you yet? Okay, let me try again.
Caroline, who is consistently self-destructive, is really into a female wrestler named Cannonball. She is herself at times Cannonball, as in blasting into everything, fired from a cannon. She’s writing a YA novel which seems to reflect some of her own angst and still youthful (but no longer really innocent) yearnings. We jump as things proceed from Cannonball to sc fi YA novel to her own life and the connections between these things begin to help us understand her, but we don't like her much. The self-destructive path continues its downward spiral as inexplicably, Caroline receives a major YA award for the book she publishes, which pushes her over the edge, instead of soothing her anxieties and self-loathing. Success actually makes things much worse, which makes one dimension of this work a commentary on fame, I guess.
The character who stands for us is her friend who tells her exactly what she needs to hear. That’s where we find the exhilaration, ironically, in the art school crowd, in what I gradually come to see as spot-on, articulately (and I guess I have to name the tone, finally) satirical dialogue. Yep, I have to read this as a kind of dark satire in places. Art School Confidential. A touch of Whit Stillman (Metropolitan) social criticism but with the gloves off, with breakdown rage against—what?—everything.
This is not a book to necessarily “like” because most people (unless they are self-important young artists or those who loathe them) will not “love” this world, but it is one to admire for capturing a particular zeitgeist (do people still use this word?!). It’s a pretty long and substantial book, and I recommend maybe especially twenty-somethings checking it out. I'd like to group it with other slacker twenties books/series like Giant Days (okay, this is still in uni), Simon Hanselman's Megg, Mogg and Owl series, Scott Pilgrim. Or all the I Hate Art School comics books.
This is a review with a ten page excerpt, if you want to check it out:
https://themillions.com/2019/04/panel....
May 5, 2019
I gave this an extra star because I loved the artwork, but as much as I wanted to like the story, I just couldn't. The protagonist is simply unlikeable. She is selfish, egotistical, and takes her anger out on others and does not seem to make any sort of progress at all throughout the story. To the author's credit, I get that this is the point of the "tortured artist" character, and the character herself is constantly struggling with her self-image, part of her does know she is an asshole. For me though, it did not make for an enjoyable read.
That being said I would love to see more from Kelsey Wroten, she is inarguably a great writer capable of writing complex (and queer!) characters, I myself was just unable to empathize with Caroline.
That being said I would love to see more from Kelsey Wroten, she is inarguably a great writer capable of writing complex (and queer!) characters, I myself was just unable to empathize with Caroline.
June 23, 2019
Oh, joy, another graphic novel about a bitter, tortured, and angsty art school student with a drinking problem. Can't have enough of those.
I hate dream sequences, but this book takes that hatred to a whole new level by having the main character wake up from her dream sequence, write down the dream, and then turn it into fantasy sequences from the novel-within-the-story that she is writing. And then that novel becomes successful, and we have to have to listen to other characters tell us how moving and powerful it is.
AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
My main problem is that I truly cannot tell if this book is meant to be taken seriously at face value or if it is self-mockery and satire. The story seems to walk a tightrope between the two as if leaving open the option to go whichever the way the critical wind blows.
There are some truths spoken in here, but they are drowned out by the crapstorm raging around and between them.
I hate dream sequences, but this book takes that hatred to a whole new level by having the main character wake up from her dream sequence, write down the dream, and then turn it into fantasy sequences from the novel-within-the-story that she is writing. And then that novel becomes successful, and we have to have to listen to other characters tell us how moving and powerful it is.
AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
My main problem is that I truly cannot tell if this book is meant to be taken seriously at face value or if it is self-mockery and satire. The story seems to walk a tightrope between the two as if leaving open the option to go whichever the way the critical wind blows.
There are some truths spoken in here, but they are drowned out by the crapstorm raging around and between them.
September 5, 2019
An argument I find myself regularly chasing the tail of is the one around the method of determining value. Goodness or badness. Amazingness or suckiness. Tattoo this across my breast or don't wipe my ass with it. I read a book and I hate it and say it's bad, or love it and say it's amazing, and where do I get off. How does my response to a piece of art reflect and honor my belief about what art is, and from whence did I derive that belief and am I interrogating it.
While in the context of art there will always be the matter of taste to contend with, it nevertheless seems crucial that my standards be healthy: without healthy standards for debate and critique and a regularly interrogated system of belief around the nature and determination of value, I will flush myself down the toilet. We all just watched our whole fucking country do precisely that and damn has that spectacle been instructive. I want to be sturdy. I want to be transparent. I want to be accountable, in a way that feels . . . idk I guess I feel kind of zealous about it. And just because the thing I'm talking about right now is whether some comic is dumb or incredible, I still feel this urgency to proceed according to the same ethical principles I'd apply if discussing whether an action is good or bad, whether a person, whether a culture, whether a system for adjudicating value itself.
So. If I wasn't paying attention to any of that stuff I would just say I didn't like this book. It's about a self-absorbed, self-important, spoiled young turd who loafs about all day fantasizing about what a great writer she is while being a bad friend and a bit of a crush creep and judging everyone else for being an idiot and/or a sellout, and then she writes a book and gets a bunch of money and acclaim and it doesn't really mean anything or change anything, she's still just sullen and sour and selfish, the end.
But. That's so fucked, right?? That's so fucked that I would read this and just toss it in a big thoughtless insensitive clump of my own preferences as if I had no idea that its writer exists as a person in the world. Or I don't know maybe it's not fucked as long as I'm doing it responsibly or something but it just feels super fucked to me more and more lately and I have been enjoying the challenge of resisting it. It's the way I reacted to everything forever, but the Trump thing has really whacked me in the nards, you know? I look back on how solipsistic my worldview has been when it came to talking about books and it's so cringey. I was such a dummy. And so arrogant. Blech.
Anyway so but yeah, in order to read this book and not just react to it, the first thing I needed to stop acting like was the book's problem is that I am old. I am long familiar. I persist from an earlier time. I am twenty years older than a twenty-year old. Literally. And heads-up this is a book about people who are . . . like four years older than a twenty-year old. It's pretty much a book about twenty-year olds. And . . . while I kind of remember being those people, also that was a lifetime ago and it turns out it is really a challenge to accept that truly I too was once the center of the universe.
Anyway all of which is to say: I struggled to find my way through this book. It didn't feel like a satire, but neither did it feel like a sincere portrait. It's like . . . it's like a tongue-in-cheek sincere portrait of a character who is kind of a satire, maybe? Caroline is shallow and lazy and vain and self-absorbed but then in a further complicating how-am-I-to-receive-this twist, she doesn't get punished for having any of those qualities. In fact she triumphs. In a way. Because also the book ends with Caroline under a table at her own awards ceremony, no internal battles overcome or really even waged, just melting into the carpet and her dreams the same little peeve she started out as.
I'm reading an interview with Wroten where she talks about coming out as an eighteen-year old and her parents trying to ground her from her girlfriend and her giving them an ultimatum and them putting her shit on the curb. Which is intense. There's a scene in the book where Caroline fights with her dad and her dad acts really one-dimensional which kind of makes Caroline seem like even more of a cartoon but maybe that stuff is actually just cartoonish, you know? Like it's not necessarily that nuanced if your parents are out-of-the-closet bigot, so that was also something I felt like I had a reaction to based on what I think storytelling is supposed to do but that I think is legitimately undermined by this experience that is not mine and that therefore it's not useful or productive of me to say is ineffectual. Like fuck me a little bit there, you know? If I really need to be affected by the cruelty of bigots then that burden of proof certainly doesn't rest on the backs of those who already have been.
Ummmm . . . this is maybe the spaciest review I've ever written. It's not really about the book but the book was just a good catalyst for me right now to try and get some of these ideas down. They're not really clear here but I'm also not going to keep squeezing this lemon right now, I have some other stuff to do. I hope I make a better case for this stuff moving forward and thank you for bearing with me as I rearrange my mind.
Also the art in this book is so pretty!! Wroten is an awesome artist and I like that this book is gay and cool and kind of a brat. More power to all of that forever.
While in the context of art there will always be the matter of taste to contend with, it nevertheless seems crucial that my standards be healthy: without healthy standards for debate and critique and a regularly interrogated system of belief around the nature and determination of value, I will flush myself down the toilet. We all just watched our whole fucking country do precisely that and damn has that spectacle been instructive. I want to be sturdy. I want to be transparent. I want to be accountable, in a way that feels . . . idk I guess I feel kind of zealous about it. And just because the thing I'm talking about right now is whether some comic is dumb or incredible, I still feel this urgency to proceed according to the same ethical principles I'd apply if discussing whether an action is good or bad, whether a person, whether a culture, whether a system for adjudicating value itself.
So. If I wasn't paying attention to any of that stuff I would just say I didn't like this book. It's about a self-absorbed, self-important, spoiled young turd who loafs about all day fantasizing about what a great writer she is while being a bad friend and a bit of a crush creep and judging everyone else for being an idiot and/or a sellout, and then she writes a book and gets a bunch of money and acclaim and it doesn't really mean anything or change anything, she's still just sullen and sour and selfish, the end.
But. That's so fucked, right?? That's so fucked that I would read this and just toss it in a big thoughtless insensitive clump of my own preferences as if I had no idea that its writer exists as a person in the world. Or I don't know maybe it's not fucked as long as I'm doing it responsibly or something but it just feels super fucked to me more and more lately and I have been enjoying the challenge of resisting it. It's the way I reacted to everything forever, but the Trump thing has really whacked me in the nards, you know? I look back on how solipsistic my worldview has been when it came to talking about books and it's so cringey. I was such a dummy. And so arrogant. Blech.
Anyway so but yeah, in order to read this book and not just react to it, the first thing I needed to stop acting like was the book's problem is that I am old. I am long familiar. I persist from an earlier time. I am twenty years older than a twenty-year old. Literally. And heads-up this is a book about people who are . . . like four years older than a twenty-year old. It's pretty much a book about twenty-year olds. And . . . while I kind of remember being those people, also that was a lifetime ago and it turns out it is really a challenge to accept that truly I too was once the center of the universe.
Anyway all of which is to say: I struggled to find my way through this book. It didn't feel like a satire, but neither did it feel like a sincere portrait. It's like . . . it's like a tongue-in-cheek sincere portrait of a character who is kind of a satire, maybe? Caroline is shallow and lazy and vain and self-absorbed but then in a further complicating how-am-I-to-receive-this twist, she doesn't get punished for having any of those qualities. In fact she triumphs. In a way. Because also the book ends with Caroline under a table at her own awards ceremony, no internal battles overcome or really even waged, just melting into the carpet and her dreams the same little peeve she started out as.
I'm reading an interview with Wroten where she talks about coming out as an eighteen-year old and her parents trying to ground her from her girlfriend and her giving them an ultimatum and them putting her shit on the curb. Which is intense. There's a scene in the book where Caroline fights with her dad and her dad acts really one-dimensional which kind of makes Caroline seem like even more of a cartoon but maybe that stuff is actually just cartoonish, you know? Like it's not necessarily that nuanced if your parents are out-of-the-closet bigot, so that was also something I felt like I had a reaction to based on what I think storytelling is supposed to do but that I think is legitimately undermined by this experience that is not mine and that therefore it's not useful or productive of me to say is ineffectual. Like fuck me a little bit there, you know? If I really need to be affected by the cruelty of bigots then that burden of proof certainly doesn't rest on the backs of those who already have been.
Ummmm . . . this is maybe the spaciest review I've ever written. It's not really about the book but the book was just a good catalyst for me right now to try and get some of these ideas down. They're not really clear here but I'm also not going to keep squeezing this lemon right now, I have some other stuff to do. I hope I make a better case for this stuff moving forward and thank you for bearing with me as I rearrange my mind.
Also the art in this book is so pretty!! Wroten is an awesome artist and I like that this book is gay and cool and kind of a brat. More power to all of that forever.
May 9, 2019
Upsettingly relatable.
July 17, 2019
This just made me feel so tired and old.
May 23, 2019
3.5 stars.
Caroline, the protagonist of this graphic novel, is a really frustrated and angry person, one that I didn't necessarily like. She is a queer, semi-alcoholic, recent art school graduate who is trying to get published while also maintaining her integrity as an artist, i.e. not "selling out." On one hand, I deeply understood her and felt bad for the injustices she deals with in the story (don't get me started on her dad), but on the other, I wanted to yell at her to stop being a dick to her friends and alienating the people who care about her. So yeah, I'm conflicted about Caroline and it's hard to separate my feelings about her from my feelings about this book as a whole—even though I strongly believe that authors should write more unlikeable female protagonists and that not liking a main character isn't an indicator that a work of fiction doesn't have worth!
Maybe what's bothering me is that Caroline doesn't seem to have much of an arc through the story? She's kind of the same person at the end as she was at the beginning, and while my brain says that's fine, my heart wants some sort of growth or redemption.
(There were also some weirdly obvious misspellings and typos in the text that I feel like an editor should have caught and corrected. But that is neither here nor there.)
What I do know is that Kelsey Wroten's art is beautiful. Really. All of the heart eyes. I just want to roll around in the color palette. I'd recommend this one for the visuals alone, and I will definitely be reading anything else Wroten creates in the future.
(Read Harder challenge #21: A comic by an LGBTQIA creator)
Caroline, the protagonist of this graphic novel, is a really frustrated and angry person, one that I didn't necessarily like. She is a queer, semi-alcoholic, recent art school graduate who is trying to get published while also maintaining her integrity as an artist, i.e. not "selling out." On one hand, I deeply understood her and felt bad for the injustices she deals with in the story (don't get me started on her dad), but on the other, I wanted to yell at her to stop being a dick to her friends and alienating the people who care about her. So yeah, I'm conflicted about Caroline and it's hard to separate my feelings about her from my feelings about this book as a whole—even though I strongly believe that authors should write more unlikeable female protagonists and that not liking a main character isn't an indicator that a work of fiction doesn't have worth!
Maybe what's bothering me is that Caroline doesn't seem to have much of an arc through the story? She's kind of the same person at the end as she was at the beginning, and while my brain says that's fine, my heart wants some sort of growth or redemption.
(There were also some weirdly obvious misspellings and typos in the text that I feel like an editor should have caught and corrected. But that is neither here nor there.)
What I do know is that Kelsey Wroten's art is beautiful. Really. All of the heart eyes. I just want to roll around in the color palette. I'd recommend this one for the visuals alone, and I will definitely be reading anything else Wroten creates in the future.
(Read Harder challenge #21: A comic by an LGBTQIA creator)
February 24, 2020
did not finish
Having enough familial stability and financial support to attend + graduate from an arts college, move out immediately after completing said degree, AND having your own one bedroom apartment? HONESTLY -- cannot relate.
Many reviews address the protagonist but in reality, none of the characters stood out to me. Frankly, I was equally annoyed at every character introduced. While the book seemed promising for queer representation, it really only repeated the narrative of "Look at me, I'm a 'starving' and 'misunderstood' artist, woe is me" while ignoring all of her blatant privileges such as being white, cisgender, wealthy, etc. This book had potential but ultimately did not add to LGBTQ graphic novels / literature.
Having enough familial stability and financial support to attend + graduate from an arts college, move out immediately after completing said degree, AND having your own one bedroom apartment? HONESTLY -- cannot relate.
Many reviews address the protagonist but in reality, none of the characters stood out to me. Frankly, I was equally annoyed at every character introduced. While the book seemed promising for queer representation, it really only repeated the narrative of "Look at me, I'm a 'starving' and 'misunderstood' artist, woe is me" while ignoring all of her blatant privileges such as being white, cisgender, wealthy, etc. This book had potential but ultimately did not add to LGBTQ graphic novels / literature.
August 22, 2019
Dang, I finished this a couple weeks ago and forgot to immediately write a review. Therefore, I've forgotten specifics.
I can say that the overall impression that I remember was fantastic. I really like the artwork (that's what inspired me to buy it in the first place, as I've never read anything else by Kelsey Wroten). The protagonist is young and largely uninspired by much, aside from writing. Sometimes her motives in writing are not exactly pure (fueled by jealousy or a desire to be recognized), but the drive is there. She is ambitious only in her writing and otherwise struggles to maintain friendships, jobs, etc.
Her book ends up becoming greatly successful, launching her into a different lifestyle than she was accustomed, and she struggles to adjust. There are subplots involving a close friendship evolving as both parties mature and change, sexuality (the protagonist and best friend are both gay) and responsibility as well as a "book within a book" involving excerpts from the protagonist's YA novel.
I can say that the overall impression that I remember was fantastic. I really like the artwork (that's what inspired me to buy it in the first place, as I've never read anything else by Kelsey Wroten). The protagonist is young and largely uninspired by much, aside from writing. Sometimes her motives in writing are not exactly pure (fueled by jealousy or a desire to be recognized), but the drive is there. She is ambitious only in her writing and otherwise struggles to maintain friendships, jobs, etc.
Her book ends up becoming greatly successful, launching her into a different lifestyle than she was accustomed, and she struggles to adjust. There are subplots involving a close friendship evolving as both parties mature and change, sexuality (the protagonist and best friend are both gay) and responsibility as well as a "book within a book" involving excerpts from the protagonist's YA novel.
October 26, 2019
Cannonball is the story of Caroline Bertram, fresh out of art school, and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She wants to be a writer, but is her own worst critic ...
I was going to continue with something like, “How can you experience happiness if your first instinct is to push it away?” but that's not really accurate. Caroline experiences her share of happiness, but only when she's not focused on second guessing every thought that pops into her head. It's complicated.
Needless to say, Kelsey Wroten has created a very real and interesting and believable character here. Caroline doesn't react to the world in the same ways I do, but she feels authentic and I can kind of understand where she's coming from.
I love the artwork. In particular, Wroten’s use of color is most impressive. It may look simple and cartoony, but the subject matter is fairly deep and complex.
An impressive debut! Kelsey Wroten is definitely worth keeping an eye out for whatever she does next. Recommended!
I was going to continue with something like, “How can you experience happiness if your first instinct is to push it away?” but that's not really accurate. Caroline experiences her share of happiness, but only when she's not focused on second guessing every thought that pops into her head. It's complicated.
Needless to say, Kelsey Wroten has created a very real and interesting and believable character here. Caroline doesn't react to the world in the same ways I do, but she feels authentic and I can kind of understand where she's coming from.
I love the artwork. In particular, Wroten’s use of color is most impressive. It may look simple and cartoony, but the subject matter is fairly deep and complex.
An impressive debut! Kelsey Wroten is definitely worth keeping an eye out for whatever she does next. Recommended!
May 7, 2019
If you suffer from imposter syndrome, this book will resonate with you but not provide any solution or uplifting resolution. The takeaway, I've found, is alcoholism is not a viable solution (duh), depression and anxiety can sometimes behave as vices of self-absorption, celebrating your success and that of others is a much happier and positive way to conduct your life, justifying your own self-hatred and shoving it down others' throats so that they "understand you" is divisive and self-indulgent, and self-destruction in the name of "art" is overdone and lame - we all need to get over this tired trope. All that being said, I'm excited to read other works by Kelsey Wroten. I like her artistic style, the depiction of Caroline's inner turmoil, and decision to let the reader sit with a sour ending in congruence with the protagonist herself.
October 6, 2019
I loved the art, I loved the queerness, but I didn't care for the main character. The end doesn't particularly leave her anywhere memorable either - there's a crest and then she coasts, and coasts and coasts, and I don't feel that I have learned anything or gained anything from continuing to witness this. Would read more of the author's works, I just sort of feel like I've wasted my time here though on a certain level.
September 8, 2019
As an art school grad whose art career never really went anywhere, the first half of this book resonated with me. Caroline is a fresh-out-of-college writer trying to get her career off the ground. Her friends are settling for office jobs and her parents are trying to get her to do the same. Caroline is trying to figure her stuff out, but nothing feels right. A lot of people are driven to art because they can't express themselves in more conventional ways. Caroline is angry and disaffected gets frustrated in pretty much every social situation.
Then, in the middle, over the course of very few pages, Caroline abandons the book she's been working on forever, writes a new one, gets it published, and now she has has more people paying attention to her, but it doesn't change how she feels about herself. Success doesn't relieve her frustrations, it just puts her in bigger, tougher social situations.
Of course, I wonder if this is somewhat autobiographical. Or, perhaps, based on people the author knows. Writers writing about writers, the literary "write what you know". This feels so much like an indie book from the 90's, back when your choices were superheroes or Fantagraphics or Drawn and Quarterly, with nothing in between.
Then, in the middle, over the course of very few pages, Caroline abandons the book she's been working on forever, writes a new one, gets it published, and now she has has more people paying attention to her, but it doesn't change how she feels about herself. Success doesn't relieve her frustrations, it just puts her in bigger, tougher social situations.
Of course, I wonder if this is somewhat autobiographical. Or, perhaps, based on people the author knows. Writers writing about writers, the literary "write what you know". This feels so much like an indie book from the 90's, back when your choices were superheroes or Fantagraphics or Drawn and Quarterly, with nothing in between.
September 25, 2019
The redeeming part of this book for me was Caroline’s friends. I really liked Caroline’s friends and the sassy dialogue between Caroline and them.
However I do have some big problems with this book:
- I just don’t like the books about people making something else whether that be a movie, book, etc.
- Despite being a graphic novel, the illustrations didn’t really help the story. It might’ve worked better and actually made more sense as a novel.
- Caroline as a character doesn’t really grow throughout the book which was frustrating.
- The ending was kind of confusing. I honestly cannot tell you clearly what happened.
However I do have some big problems with this book:
- I just don’t like the books about people making something else whether that be a movie, book, etc.
- Despite being a graphic novel, the illustrations didn’t really help the story. It might’ve worked better and actually made more sense as a novel.
- Caroline as a character doesn’t really grow throughout the book which was frustrating.
- The ending was kind of confusing. I honestly cannot tell you clearly what happened.
June 6, 2019
The good: Wroten does a fantastic job of capturing the confusion and ennui of post-college life. The artwork was excellent.
The bad: Wroten's protagonist ,Caroline, though relatable to many of us who have since moved on from that post-college period in our lives, is completely unlikable. She came across as a judgmental, obnoxious alcoholic spoiled brat with no consideration for anyone but herself. I kept hoping the story would go somewhere with Caroline's recognizing these character flaws in herself, but that did not happen.
The bad: Wroten's protagonist ,Caroline, though relatable to many of us who have since moved on from that post-college period in our lives, is completely unlikable. She came across as a judgmental, obnoxious alcoholic spoiled brat with no consideration for anyone but herself. I kept hoping the story would go somewhere with Caroline's recognizing these character flaws in herself, but that did not happen.
July 31, 2021
I really liked the way it switched from reality to fantasy, and the change of art (I didn't really like the story-inside-a-story thing though). And the book was alright, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting. The main character is unlikable, but I didn’t really care for any of the other characters as well. I didn’t find them that interesting, we didn’t really get that much information on anyone and they were all just flat. The worst part is that Caroline, in a way, reminded me of Lena Dunham in girls. The whole «I have a lot of privileges and I could fix my problems, but >:-(( I don’t want to!! I want everybody to feel bad for me» got tiring and frustrating, and I totally understand that «fixing» things is not easy, the problem is that she didn’t try for a single second, she just blamed all the people around her and started yelling them for no reason.
For example when a character got their work published and she goes off on a three page rant about how much of a motherfucker he is, that he doesn’t deserve it and how she’s SO much better, even though she’s not really working with her writing and she’s not doing anything to fix her writers block. Or when something positive happened in her best friends life, and she gets upset and angry at her for not spending 99% of their time and energy on her. It just got annoying, I understand the whole point is her being a "tortured artist", I just found it annoying more than entertaining.
For example when a character got their work published and she goes off on a three page rant about how much of a motherfucker he is, that he doesn’t deserve it and how she’s SO much better, even though she’s not really working with her writing and she’s not doing anything to fix her writers block. Or when something positive happened in her best friends life, and she gets upset and angry at her for not spending 99% of their time and energy on her. It just got annoying, I understand the whole point is her being a "tortured artist", I just found it annoying more than entertaining.
August 4, 2020
This was unfortunately disappointing. Caroline reminds me too much of Lena Dunham's characters in Tiny Furniture and Girls--just the absolute worst aspects of a recent college grad who wants to be an ~artist~ with little to no redeeming qualities. I also felt really gaslit by Pen referring to themself with they/them pronouns on their voicemail and literally no one else in the book following suit or correcting anyone and it's never explicitly mentioned? Maybe I'm too used to middle grade always ending with hope and character growth and all books for adults are really just this bleak, but this was bleak.
October 21, 2019
This took a little bit for me to fully get into, but once I did, I was sucked in. This reminded me a lot of Ghost World in that the protagonist is so unlikeable, but she's written in such a great way. This is about pretentiousness and imposter syndrome and being less than a year out of college, I related way more than I'd care to admit. The story and its characters are so messy, but it's so refreshing to see something so honest.
November 3, 2019
The main character is such an unlikeable human and the book just feels like it goes on and on and then the end just stops. I also wasn't a huge fan of the art style for most of the book but it kind of grew on me by the end.
December 30, 2019
I found myself really absorbed by this story even though the main character was pretty terrible. I think Wroten illustrated well the conflicts around creating art that's both meaningful and profitable. I also really wish the YA story-within-a-story was real.
May 30, 2019
Nice effort into the miserable queer / lesbian comic canon. (Bechdel, Mimi Pond, Hanselmann, etc) Funny, depressing, good comics.
January 9, 2020
Caroline Bertram, the main character of Cannonball, is such a fun character to follow, flaws and all. The concepts and art of the book are original and top-notch too.
June 21, 2020
// excellent queer artist coming of age comic
June 14, 2023
Loved the art style and the use of colours (I think I say that every time I review a graphic novel, but darn, there's just a great use of colour in basically all the graphic novels I read). The story, though, not so much. Caroline is intensely unlikeable, and though I understand that that's the point, it didn't make for a great reading experience. I'm also not quite sure I get the ending.
I loved the parts from Caroline's YA novel, though (even though I don't think from what I've seen it would be published as YA, but as MG, but that's a minor gripe).
I loved the parts from Caroline's YA novel, though (even though I don't think from what I've seen it would be published as YA, but as MG, but that's a minor gripe).
August 15, 2020
This would have been 4 stars, but I looked up the author and she had pronouns on her twitter.
I like fundamentally unlikeable female characters. This was just a huge slog to read through. Narcissistic artist who is infuriatingly self-destructive hits a little too close to home, lol. Dialogue was unbearable. I kept flipping thru the pages to see more titties. There were more.
I like fundamentally unlikeable female characters. This was just a huge slog to read through. Narcissistic artist who is infuriatingly self-destructive hits a little too close to home, lol. Dialogue was unbearable. I kept flipping thru the pages to see more titties. There were more.
September 15, 2021
this graphic novel is extremely good. both the art and the writing. the way the main character thinks & feels is so deeply relatable. It’s hard to exist.
June 18, 2025
Some stuffs were interesting but it was so long that I didn’t push myself to finish it
April 26, 2024
I loved this book more than I even anticipated. Yes it looks slick ; digitally drawn with a pleasing off-crayola crayon color palette, smooth lines, well designed and defined characters that blush or get red with anger in a beautiful salmon hue that envelopes the whole top half of their faces...but, I digress in getting so very specific. What a triumphant work from Kelsey Wroten ; Cannonball follows newly graduated, afraid of success and failure equally, writer Caroline as she navigates single life, letting her friends down and desperately trying to write her masterpiece against all odds after college. She clings to college life and sneaks into her old student center to write, is still absorbed in the drama of her department and is angered by the members of it, younger than she, being raised up. Caroline is tough and often mean ; reeking of jaded-ness in her early twenties and cutting people down, even those who try desperately to support and understand her like her best friend Penelope. Cannonball has a great strength of character ; both its literal characters who are immediate reads, so easy to understand who they are from their first several lines of dialogue, and the book as a whole is everything you want it to be, yet still surprising. I commented to a co-worker that I also admire that, not only does Wroten SHOW Caroline's work (you get to know exactly what her book is about and hear some of it) but it is GOOD. Almost the most rewarding and introspective part of this reading experience! Yes Caroline is unlikable at times but she represents that part of us that WON'T listen to anyone else but, in the end, has the tools to be genuine and defeat the gloom and horror in the world and overcome it with art and, if we are lucky and work at it, love and friendship as well. Read this book.
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