Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Instagram
  3. Follow us on Bluesky
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • Getting Started in CBR17
    • Rules of Respect
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
    • About Cannonball Read
  • Our Team
    • The CBR Team
    • Leaderboard
    • Recent Comments
    • Participant Interviews
    • Cannonballer Location Maps
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
    • Star Ratings
    • Featured Review Archive
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • Donate
    • CBR Merchandise
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Suggest a Review
    • 2025 Registration
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Social Media

About Zirza

CBR 6
CBR 7
CBR 8
CBR  9
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Comments
CBR17 Levels

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.

Zirza's Reviews:

“In fact it’s the very reason I root for us to survive – because we are so stupid about each other.”

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

July 14, 2025 by Zirza Leave a Comment

Sally Rooney is a divisive figure. It’s easy to put down her work as self-involved millennial bullshit. It’s equally easy to paint her detractors as oblivious neoliths. Still, I feel that the most common criticism levelled at her work is also precisely the point.  Beautiful World, Where Are You is about Alice and Eileen, two thirty-ish university friends who lead very different lives. Alice is a successful novelist; she has published two books and travels the world doing interviews. Eileen, intelligent and once promising, works […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Sally Rooney

Zirza's CBR17 Review No:38 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Sally Rooney ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Not the kind of in-depth I was looking for

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

July 12, 2025 by Zirza Leave a Comment

Not in Love (Ali Hazelwood) *** Rue Siebert is a scientist who loves her work. She spends her days at a tech company trying to improve the shelf life of perishables; as a child who dealt with a lot of food insecurity, it is personally important to her. It also provides her with financial stability and her best friend works there too. But then a hostile takeover occurs, and Rue is very surprised to see the man leading the takeover is Eli Killgore – the […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Mystery, Romance Tagged With: Ali Hazelwood, Clare Mackintosh, England, Ffion Morgan, Inspector Morgan Series, Romance, science, wales

Zirza's CBR17 Review No:37 · Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Romance · Tags: Ali Hazelwood, Clare Mackintosh, England, Ffion Morgan, Inspector Morgan Series, Romance, science, wales ·
· 0 Comments

Reindeer Games

How to Slay at Christmas by Sarah Bonner

July 4, 2025 by Zirza Leave a Comment

Jessica loves Christmas. She makes her living during the year playing poker tournaments, but around late October she travels the country looking for a job as Mrs Claus at Christmas markets. It’s her favourite thing in the world; making children happy and thusly making their parents happy. The lights, the glitter, the sparkle. And after work, she kills people who deserve it.  This isn’t my usual fare, but I decided to give it a go because it’s freaking hot outside and I was in the […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Horror, Romance Tagged With: christmas, Cozy crime, Sarah Bonner

Zirza's CBR17 Review No:35 · Genres: Fiction, Horror, Romance · Tags: christmas, Cozy crime, Sarah Bonner ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

“The economy’s in ruins, no one’s got a job, and we just don’t care, it’s bliss.”

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

June 30, 2025 by Zirza 1 Comment

It’s 1983. Thatcher is at No. 10 and Nick Guest, age 21, has just graduated from Oxford University. He finds himself as a lodger at the house of a college friend, Toby, whose father Gerald Fedden has been elected as a promising new conservative MP. Nick, who comes from a solidly middle class background, finds himself a loose thread intricately woven into the upper class social fabric of the Freddens. Nick has the wrong background and the wrong predilections, and he knows it doesn’t take […]

Filed Under: Featured, Fiction Tagged With: Alan Hollinghurst, booker prize winner, LGBT fiction, literary fiction, London, the line of beauty

Zirza's CBR17 Review No:34 · Genres: Featured, Fiction · Tags: Alan Hollinghurst, booker prize winner, LGBT fiction, literary fiction, London, the line of beauty ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

A Little Past Its Due Date

The Snapper (Barrytown #2) by Roddy Doyle

June 23, 2025 by Zirza Leave a Comment

In early nineties small-town Ireland, the Rabbitte family is met with an unwelcome surprise: daughter Sharon, aged 20, is pregnant. She will not reveal who the father is, much to the consternation of her friends and family. We see their ups and downs as Sharon’s pregnancy progresses.  Whoever buys English language books for my local library has struck again: for some reason it carries book 2, but not book 1 or 3, of the Barrytown Trilogy, and because I am an idiot and did not […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Barrytown, Barrytown Trilogy, childbirth, Ireland, Roddy Doyle

Zirza's CBR17 Review No:33 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Barrytown, Barrytown Trilogy, childbirth, Ireland, Roddy Doyle ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Dead Giveaway

The Dead Romantics by Ashely Poston

June 21, 2025 by Zirza 1 Comment

Florence ‘Flo’ Day is a novelist with one not very successful novel to her name. She has been working as a ghost writer for a famous novelist, but since her grade a dickback boyfriend quite literally dumped her she can’t find her groove. Her super sexy new editor tells her to get her ass in gear, but she can’t – and then her beloved father dies, her world shatters, and she returns home to the town she fled when she was eighteen.  You see, Flo […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Romance Tagged With: Ashely Poston, Ashley Poston, Death, death of a parent, Romance, The Dead Romantics

Zirza's CBR17 Review No:32 · Genres: Fiction, Romance · Tags: Ashely Poston, Ashley Poston, Death, death of a parent, Romance, The Dead Romantics ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment
  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 38
  • Next Page »


Recent Comments

  • Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
  • Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
  • Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
  • Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
  • Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.
See More Recent Comments »

Support Our Mission

  • Support Our Mission: Donate Today!
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo

The reviews and comments posted on this site reflect the opinions of individual posters and do not reflect the views of Cannonball Read.

© 2025 Cannonball Read Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) | Log in