Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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About Zirza

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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 reading stuff and writing about it. I try to keep the bitchiness to a minimum, but sometimes I can't help myself. In my spare time I enjoy complaining about the weather and sleeping. I lack the attention span for good books and the tolerance for bad ones. I am stuck in literary purgatory. Hey, at least it's warm here. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Zirza's Quick Questions interview.)

Zirza's Reviews:

Holiday Roundup

A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen L. Peck

System Collapse (Murderbot #7) by Martha Wells

Tough Guy (Game Changers #4) by Rachel Reid

Flesh by David Szalay

The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

Last One Out by Jane Harper

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Here’s what I read while I was camping in France. It was very hot. I may have melted a few times. It was way too hot for complicated stuff, so for unrelated reasons: here’s a picture of a hotel that’s for sale in the charming, medieval town of Brancion in the Bourgogne for anyone contemplating a career change. Say hi to the former caretaker’s wife; she was very friendly.  Anyway, here’s what I read.  A Short Stay in Hell (Stephen L. Peck) **** A man, […]

Father Figure

Father Material (London Calling #3) by Alexis Hall

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Now that Luc and Oliver’s relationship has survived a few ups and downs – from fake dating to real dating, almost getting married – they figure it’s time for the next step: a dog. They get an adorable dog of indeterminate race named Spud, in spite of Oliver’s attempts to name him something elegant and statesque because Spud looks like a potato. Luc immediately feels inadequate in the face of Oliver’s immaculate preparation (reading a shitload of books and taking notes), his stern but loving […]

Common Denominators

Common Goal (Gamechangers #4) by Rachel Reid

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Eric Bennett is a hockey goalie for the New York Admirals. He’s pushing forty and knows that the end of his career is coming, but he finds it hard to take the plunge. Recently divorced, he’s eager to explore the other side of the bisexual equation, so when he meets Kyle at a gay bar he’s game. But will the age gap get in the way?  I find it increasingly hard to write reviews of these books because they’re all the same. That’s not an […]

At least now I know where the term “Whirling Dervish” comes from

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

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That’s the most positive thing I can come up with about this book. What a slog this was.  The plot: Ella Rubinstein is a forty year old stay at home mother to two children and a possibly perpetually unfaithful husband. She takes up a job with a publishing house to revise a novel called Sweet Blasphemy by a man named Aziz Zahara. As she reads the novel, she becomes fascinated by the story of the novel, about the friendship between renowned 13th century poet Rumi […]

A little less conversation, a little more action please

The Secrets We Hide (North Falls #2) by Karin Slaughter

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Sherrif Emmy Clifford and her retired FBI sister Jude have just returned from their mother’s funeral when they hear shots being fired at the house of Emmy’s erstwhile friend Alison. Inside, Alison is found dead and her daughter critically injured. Emmy investigates and before long, suspicion falls upon Alison’s abusive husband Bill. He is the obvious suspect and the sleepy, sedate, tight community of the town of North Falls rallies for Emmy to arrest him, but Emmy is not so sure and the more she […]

Well gosh darn, dang it all to heck

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

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We all know the trend: young women deliberately turning their backs on the modern world and cosplaying the rural homesteading lifestyle, where they grow their own veggies, bake their own bread, butcher their own chickens and make their own clothing. The lifestyle is then perfectly captured on social media, with carefully curated pictures of blond children in gingham dresses and cowboy boots, and posts that are clearly political in nature masked as just-asking-questions. Comments on social media posts split themselves between admiration and vitriol, and […]



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