Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

CBR Facebook Page. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Instagram. The CBR Tumblr CBR on Goodreads

Zirza

I am an English teacher from the Low Countries. Like everyone else I aspire to one day write a Booker Prize Winner, but until then I contend my self with writing bitchy reviews.

CBR11 participantCBR11 LevelsCBR 9CBR 8CBR 7CBR 6

Zirza's Reviews:

Writing 101: how to induce nausea, fits of rage and earth-shattering desperation in your audience

Fantasy in Lingerie by Penelope Sky

by 4 Comments

Hello all, and welcome to fiction writing 101. Please take your seats. Coffee will be served during the break. Smokers, please only light up at the back of the building. Everyone, please steer clear of classroom B14 because the Ayurvedic Meditators are in there and they get a little iffy if you make any noise, and believe me, they have a very narrow definition on what constitutes noise. Alright, has everyone found a bucket? Sir, please put your mobile phone away, the WiFi’s not that great here anyway. Thanks. Have you all done your course reading for today? Great. We’ll […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Writing 101: how to induce nausea, fits of rage and earth-shattering desperation in your audience"

3/28/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:14 |

Down the Rabbit Hole

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane

by Leave a Comment

I fell for you because that’s what you do when you meet the woman whose face you want to be looking into when you die. You fall. And keep falling. And if you’re really lucky, she falls with you and then you never get back up again to where you were because if that was so great, you wouldn’t have needed to fall in the first place. Rachel Childs has not had the best childhood. Her mother was a famed psychologist and writer of self-help relationship manuals in public, and a miserable, lonely pessimist in private. Rachel has never known […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Down the Rabbit Hole"

3/28/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:13 |

Envision that Circumcision and Feel that Eel

Under the Knife by Arnold van der Laar

by Leave a Comment

I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. That didn’t pan out, and I’m fine with that, but the interest in all things medical has lingered. Because I was planning to read more non-fiction anyway, I picked up this book on a whim, and although I wasn’t disappointed, it lacks a certain degree of depth. More subcutaneous than intraosseal, if you please. Van de Laar – who is a surgeon himself – takes us through the history of medicine, and specifically surgery, but instead of telling the tale chronologically he chooses to make his case based on famous cases and surgeries […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Envision that Circumcision and Feel that Eel"

3/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:12 |

Breasting Boobily

Believe Me by JP Delaney

by 9 Comments

There’s a blurb on the back of Believe Me from a review by The Daily Mail: ‘Slick, sexy, suspenseful and smart.’ It’s the Daily Mail so this should be taken with a grain of salt either way, but I can think of a few better s-words to describe this novel. Soporific. Sophomoric. Sexist. Shitty. And let’s not forget the main one: stupid. So very stupid. That isn’t to say there’s nothing to enjoy there, but it’s enjoyable the way a really bad film is: it leaves you feeling smugly superior. The plot (which, I should reiterate, is stupid): British drama […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Breasting Boobily"

3/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:11 |

Small Misunderstandings and Major Desillusions

Broken Harbour by Tana French

by Leave a Comment

Primarily, reviews are about preference: did I like this book? Was it good? Usually, the two converge; what is or what isn’t good is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. Occasionally, though, these two interlinked questions separate themselves. So what do you do when a book is very good, but you’re not sure you liked it? Experienced detective Michael “Scorcher” Kennedy is called to investigate an unusually grisly crime scene: at a half-finished housing development – abandoned during the financial crisis – a young family has been attacked, leaving two young children and their father dead and their […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Small Misunderstandings and Major Desillusions"

3/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:10 |

Psycho Killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est?

In the Woods by Tana French

by Leave a Comment

Detective novels are a difficult concept to grasp, at some level. Why do we purposely seek out the sort of thing – violence, grisly murders, sex crimes, blood and viscera – we would do anything to avoid in real life? Then there are the tropes of the genre itself that work both for and against it, from the hyperconfident, competent yet over-empathic medical examiner to the tortured detective from a broken home and, more tellingly, the killer’s psychopathy. The majority of all murders are crimes of opportunity, but reading detective novels you’d think it’s Dahmer or bust. Personally I usually […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Psycho Killer, Qu’est-ce que c’est?"

2/23/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:9 |

Our House, in the Middle of our Heath

The Likeness by Tana French

by 1 Comment

I used to share a house with nine other people. They were cool people, all nine of them, but it was still far from perfect. I lacked a sense of privacy, even with my own room. I prefer going about things on my own. I can only imagine what it must have been like to spend every night in forceful merriment. In that sense, I tip my hat in the direction of the main character of The Likeness. Detective Cassandra “Cassie” Maddox receives a phone call in the middle of the night urging her to come to a secluded location […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Our House, in the Middle of our Heath"

2/18/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:8 |

Love of the Common People

Faithful Place by Tana French

by 1 Comment

On a street in a working class neighbourhood in Dublin, in the mid-eighties, nineteen year old Francis ‘Frank’ Mackey stands outside, in the middle of the night, waiting for his girlfriend, Rosie, with whom he is about to make a run for England. She never shows up. Twenty years later, Frank, now a member of Dublin’s undercover police force, receives a call from his panicked relatives. Someone has found Rosie’s suitcase in an abandoned house at the end of the street, and Frank’s theory that Rosie left for England without him is dashed to pieces. It isn’t long before Frank […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Love of the Common People"

2/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:7 |


Follow CBR on Instagram

Shop on Amazon and Support CBR

Buy Original Cannonballer Prisco's book and help CBR!

Ad Partner