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:

Welcome to the land of missed opportunity

The Camino by Anya Nieuwierra

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Lotte’s husband is a cancer survivor. Like many cancer survivors, the experience has altered him and to celebrate his survival, he decides to walk a pilgrimage: the Camino de Santiago, which runs from Le-Puy-en-Velay in central France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He sets off in good spirits, but then out of the blue Lotte receives word that her husband has taken his own life on the trail. A year later, to mourn him but also to discover what has happened, Lotte follows his […]

Down by the sea is where you drown your scars

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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It’s 1983, and Malibu is getting ready for the party of the year that pro-surfer and model Nina Riva – estranged daughter of legendary rocker Mick Riva – throws every year. Nina’s siblings gather too: not-really twins Jay and Hudson, normally joined at the hip, now have a terrible secret that threatens to pull them apart; and baby sister Kit, headstrong and on a quest for independence. The crowd at the party grows speedily and sets in motion a chain of events that will forever […]

Sad Gay Bois

Role Model (Game Changers #5) by Rachel Reid

The Long game (Game Changers #6) by Rachel Reid

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

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I don’t know how I ended up reading so many books about gay men this year (and I still have Song of Achilles on my TBR, so go figure) but by and large I’m enjoying myself, so whatever.    The Long Game (Rachel Reid) ***½ Shane and Ilya are back! Everyone’s favourite gay hockey players have moved from casual hookups to being in an actual, honest-to-God relationship – one that they still have to keep hidden from everyone because the media still pitches them as […]

Ice Ice Baby

Game Changers (Game Changers #1) by Rachel Reid

Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2) by Rachel Reid

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In Game Changers, Kip Grady works in a juice bar and quietly hates his life when he meets famous hockey player Scott Hunter. Scott comes in to the bar several times and chats to Kip, and it takes Kip a while to realise Scott is hitting on him. The two embark on a relationship and though they get along like a house on fire, Kip wants more: he wants to be out, to be seen with Scott, not hidden away in his fancy apartment like […]

Shenanigans for Grown-Ups

The Break by Marian Keyes

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Every bubble in the galaxy has burst. The million shards of sparkle suspended in the air have turned to wet ash. All the colour has leached away and the world is just grey, grey, grey.  Amy O’Connell is a 44 year old mother of three daughters, married to Hugh. She loves him, but life is a dull and chaotic blur and while she realises that Hugh is struggling after the death of his father, she is blindsided when he tells her he wants to take […]

“To The Lighthouse” for the Climate Change Generation

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

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A young woman named Rowan washes up on the shore of an island. The island houses a seed vault. It used to house researchers, too, but they have all left; the island’s beaches are rapidly being swallowed up by the rising sea levels, and the only people left on the island are caretaker Dominic, who lives with his three children in the lighthouse. They find Rowan and take her in, nurse her back to health. It doesn’t take long, however, before they discover that she […]



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