While I cannot say I am adept when it comes to either civil war books or satire, I cannot imagine a better combination exists than what Dennard Dayle provides us with. How to Dodge a Cannonball follows young Anders, a fool, as he crosses battle lines multiple times to eventually become the white flag bearer in an all-black regiment. It is not some shining light of idealism that leads him here but a survivor's instincts of making it to the next day. His main passion is not emancipation or preservation of the union, but the artistry of flag-twirling. These survivor's instincts lead Anders further north and then ultimately west and to a truly unexpected group; Catholic zealots trying to use the shadow of the civil war to prop up a new American monarchy. Along the way, Dayle provides some laugh-out-loud but deeply uncomfortable laughs at the state of our shattered union.

Okay, wow. I know this was satire, but it was just so absurdly over the top that I could hardly follow along. Every time I thought I had a grasp on what was happening, the story slipped right through my fingers. I think I understand what happened... and yet, somehow, I also don’t?

It felt less like a structured narrative and more like a stream of consciousness from Anders’ life, with occasional side notes about the actual events happening to him. That made it really hard to stay grounded in the story.

This one just wasn’t for me. Giving it 2 stars, but I’m still grateful for the chance to review the ARC. I have a feeling this will be one of those books people either really love or really hate—there’s not much middle ground.

How to Dodge a Cannonball is a unique satirical novel about the Civil War. It shouldn't work, but I think for many readers it will. We meet Anders, a teenage flag spinner for the Union, who is captured and steals a black union soldier's outfit and claims he is an octaroon. He joins a motley set of Union soldiers and they get into all sorts of shenanigans including stealing guns and staging a play. It is a weird set of circumstances these men find them in, all while Anders continues to show off his impressive flag spinning skills. I wanted to like this one- I thought it would may be Percival Everett-esque, but it lost my interest as the plot seemed to be quite disjointed, but I appreciated the swing Dayle took with this one.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

DNF at about 33% - I enjoyed the first bit of this book and thought it was funny and witty, but the pacing was so unbearably slow that I was having to force myself to read it. I think I might try again in the future, because it was well-written and poignant, but I just couldn't get into it. Some people are really going to enjoy this one!

"Why can't progress be a circus? Life's grim enough."

I was torn between 3 and 4 stars for this book. It's fast-paced, comical, and unique.

I do think this book will be a 5/5 for some readers, but I found it to be so fast-paced that it made it difficult to keep up. There are events in the book that you have to read between the lines to understand, and I found myself having to backtrack multiple times. Unfortunately, this made me struggle to connect with the plotline and characters.

Nevertheless, the book is entertaining and, at times, informative. It has a good overall message that no country is worth dying for, and somehow still manages to make a story about the Civil War laugh-out-loud funny. I recommend this to readers looking for historical fiction but who need it to be fast-paced and action-packed rather than character-focused.

Thank you, NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company, for the opportunity to read an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.

"You can't earn your freedom. That's an insult. You're born free."

I'm stopping after the halfway point, an unusual move for me. I'm tired of forcing myself to read this book.

There is some great, very funny dialogue here. I just cannot stay interested in the story. Perhaps if there was more about the war and less "speculative dramaturgy" I'd have enjoyed it more. I suspect this one will be for a very select audience.

Happy pub day to How to Dodge a Cannonball! This satire tells the story of Anders, a white teen who volunteers to be a Union Army flag twirler that defects twice before stealing the clothes of the dead and joining an all Black regiment while pretending to be of 1/8 African descent. Yes, you read that right. The entire book is just as wild.

If you can't get behind satire, this is not for you. This bordered on the edge of being too ridiculous for me at times, but right when it was about to lose me, Dayle would throw in a line so cutting or so raw it would keep me going. His pace is relentless, he wastes no time, throwing in various forms of media including a whole play to tell the story of which America is worth fighting for.

This is for fans of dark humor, biting wit, and writing where every sentence is purposeful, no matter how ridiculous. I'm not sure this makes any sense, but when I think about the plot alone, the characters alone, or the writing style alone, I'm not sure I liked this. When I think about How to Dodge a Cannonball as a whole, I think I loved it.

This satirical novel is about a white soldier joining an all-Black Union regiment during the Civil War. A wild cast of characters makes for some laugh-out-loud moments. I wish I knew a bit more about what I was about to read before I started, as I would have appreciated it even more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oh I so thought I would love this one but it was just absolutely not for me. I was madly in love with Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, and this looked like it would be similar in an American history setting. In many ways it was TOO similar (satire, war being highlighted through the use of soldiers playing thespian) made all the worse by the fact that it didn’t live up to Lennon’s work, making it feel like a subpar spinoff. I love a good witty dark humor but the prose here felt overwrought. The plot was incredibly hard to follow as the author tried so many quirky turns of phrase that any attempt to skim made you miss giant plot points. I love it once or twice, smacking you with a major point in a short pithy easy to miss manner, but that should be used to highlight the action and not used every other page.

Jamaican American Dennard Dayle’s How to Dodge a Cannonball will keep readers laughing at its dark humor or scratching their heads in wonderment with its irreverent Civil War account and look at the meaning of freedom.

The story opens with 7-year-old white Anders perched in the window of a one-room black schoolhouse in an Illinois black community. Doing what he can to learn in a community offering no other school. Anders and the teacher engage in a verbal exchange as she pretends to ignore him while teaching her class but indirectly trying to teach him a lesson about racial inequality. Before long, his mother arrives, slinging pan lids and pans in his direction and ordering him away for a painful lesson in his own family history—a family whose dreams are never fulfilled.

At 15, Anders enlists in the Union Army under McClellan where Anders serves as a flag twirler, a military position that leads to several important later scenes. Within pages, Anders has fled to the Confederacy, participated in the disastrous Pickett’s Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg, and managed to survive again by stealing a dead black Union soldier’s unform. Landing among a ragtag black Union company, most of whose members have just died in battle, Anders poses as an octoroon, explaining his light complexion while desperately hoping to find food.

Surrounded by racist white officers and black troops who play their own potentially dangerous racist game called Ofay, Anders gradually finds his home among the black soldiers such as Thomas, a giant of a former slave; Joaquin, rumored to be a violent Haitian revolutionary; Petey, a teenage bugler; and Gleason, a speculative dramatist, who plans to change the county’s future with his plays, using his fellow soldiers as actors. Together, during a scavenging raid, this small group captures a capitalist Northern arms dealer deemed traitor for doing anything for a profit and who, as a prisoner, plays his own devious role throughout the book.

With military life taking the black troops from Gettysburg to New York City’s Draft Riots and the American West where they are to participate in Native American genocide, Anders and his new friends face danger after danger, struggling to advance their standing and find freedom. Filled with surprises and strange events ranging from a reversal of minstrelsy’s blackface and efforts to replace President Lincoln with a monarchy, the main plot is occasionally interrupted by inserted letters, news stories, and lists that, while interruptions of sorts, each play a role in the story.

If you like your historical fiction straightforward and traditional, How to Dodge a Cannonball may not be for you. If you can appreciate irreverent, biting social commentary targeting forms of government, economic exploitation, war, and racism, open a copy soon. This book’s uniqueness nearly made me stop reading early on. I am delighted that I persisted!

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for an advance reader egalley of this recommended new novel.

There's a lot going on in this satiric tale of Anders, a white teenage flag twirler who joins a black unit during the Civil War, He goes on adventures far beyond the war itself, so much so that this felt overstuffed with paths out from the center. It's an interesting conceit that I found exhausting but kept reading because there are sparks that are just so funny. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Over to those who enjoy the genre.

Sadly, I finished this book, unsure if I enjoyed it. I love a good dark comedy, and there were moments of great satire and humor. Often, I was left confused because the story was hard to follow.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co.

(This is where my husband sadly shakes his head at me.) This book missed me. Me, not a majority of the world and definitely not my husband. Just me. I enjoy satire and I enjoy history. but somehow sometimes the combination doesn't work for me and that was the case here. I felt like I was reading the thoughts of a drunken Mel Brooks as he wild pitched his next great blockbuster. Which, in all fairness, my husband would love and I would go in to the other room to read. On an objective basis, I can see the attraction of the story. Poor Anders is trying to improve himself and help those around him. His character was great! Always thinking he is going to find something better on the other side, literally, he switches allegiances during the Civil War twice. But when the plot goes west, it lost me. Was this an event in history that I never learned about? Or was it some fever dream whipped topping to the odd sundae that was this book? This book wasn't for me, but if you are a Mel Brooks fan, this might be the literary gem you are looking for!

Unfortunately this was not for me. I enjoy humor and satire generally, but this one just didn't work for me. I really struggled to get into it.

This book was a complete surprise in a great way. I am a fan of John Scalzi and this book was very much along that same vein.

How to Dodge a Cannonball – A Razor-Sharp Civil War Satire (4.75/5)

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co. for the eARC of this absolutely unhinged gem of a novel. How to Dodge a Cannonball drops you into the chaos of the Civil War and then asks you to hold on and figure it out as you go.

From the very first scene, I had no illusions that this book would play by the rules of traditional historical fiction. Instead, it takes the American mythos, lights it on fire, and parades the ashes through absurd landscapes full of theater kids with muskets and arms dealers with a moral compass set to “profit.”

📚 Why It Worked for Me:
🔄 Swiftian Energy – At its core, this book reads like an epic satire in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. One minute you’re laughing at its brazen ridiculousness, the next you’re questioning the structure of our country and how history has been constructed... and who has the power to construct it.
🧠 Intentional Discomfort – The language, at times, is jarring. But it’s the kind of discomfort that makes you pause and think. It’s clear the author is wielding discomfort as a tool, not a gimmick, and those who bounce off the book may have mistaken provocation for purposelessness.
🎭 A Wild, Unapologetic Ride – From Gettysburg to the Nevada desert, this book is packed with full-blown nonsense, sharp commentary, and surprisingly moving character moments, especially as Anders, our racially fluid, flag-twirler (yes, really), stumbles toward understanding the humanity of those around him.

💬 Final Take:
This novel is not here to comfort. It’s here to disorient, provoke, and make you laugh just enough before landing a sucker punch of existential reflection. I found myself thinking deeply about who tells our national stories, and who gets to be the hero. Readers looking for a tidy, morally centered war novel may be disappointed.

dark comedy which is heavy on the comedy aspects. parts go from sane and logical to completely peculiar and unexpected. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

I usually really enjoy historical fiction. This story was hard to follow and while it started out as a funny story, it became a slog to read. It seemed like there was no forward movement in the plot and it was just Anders being not too smart and surviving battle after battle. It just wasn't for me.

“How to Dodge a Cannonball” is by Dennard Dayle. I will give Mr. Dayle points for originality - huge props for that. However, this was not a book I enjoyed reading. There are awkward time jumps and the overall story is just odd (a reviewed used the word “bonkers” and I have to admit, that’s a great word to describe this book). This book had potential, but between the historical claims (unsupported) and so much satire that it became cumbersome, this wasn’t a book I enjoyed reading. A generous two stars because I do think if one likes satire, you’ll greatly enjoy this book.

A farcical tragicomedy about a young white teenager who joins both sides during the Civil War and ends up in an all black regiment.