Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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.

Zirza's Reviews:

London is drowning and I live by the river

Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London #7) by Peter Aaronovitch

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When pressed, I’ll tell people I don’t like fantasy. This claim is usually followed by a list of exceptions. I like Neil Gaiman. I like Harry Potter. I also like the Rivers of London-series by Ben Aaronovitch. The rest of the genre is, as they say, not my cup of tea. No offense to you fantasy lovers, but it just doesn’t do much for me. The suspension of disbelief required is, apparently, too big a leap. One of the reasons I do like these books, […]

Many self-loathing. Such love. Wow.

Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James

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Hi. My name is Anastasia Rose Steele. This is totally an actual person name and not made up in any way. I go by Ana, as in pro-Ana, because we share a sense of destructive self-loathing. Anyhoodle, can I just tell you about this totally charming guy I met? I hated him the first time I saw him. It was love at first sight. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. First of all, with my trim frame and my luscious brown hair […]

Au Revoir les Enfants

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

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On a wintry night in the Peak District, a thirteen year old girl, on holiday with her parents, goes missing. Her name is Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. She’d been wearing a white hoodie, a navy blue body warmer, and canvas shoes. The town comes out in force, searching barns, quarries, forests, but nothing comes of it. Slowly, the people of the town resume daily life, and as the seasons pass, the girl slips from the public consciousness. The girl’s parents are occasionally seen wandering […]

Sorely Lacking Keanu Reeves. One Star.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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The year is 1897 and Bram Stoker is a bored businessmen who boosts his income by writing pulpy novels. The most famous of these, simply titled Dracula, was not an immediate hit, but would turn out to define Stoker’s legacy. This isn’t entirely undeserved, but outside of its snug historical pocket the novel doesn’t come across all that well. The story is well-known to nearly everyone, and I was quite surprised at how closely, at first, it follows the 1993 movie. And yet this film, […]

Bloodstains, Ballgowns, Trashing a Hotel Room

The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

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A friend of mine, whenever she encounters a problem, reminds herself of the Scale of Aleppo, wherein she compares her misfortunes to those of the people trapped in the vicious civil war in Syria. Husband running late? Barely a one on the Scale of Aleppo. Boss being an asshole? A three, at most. It’s an admirable strategy. It’s also something which, I feel, it would behoove the protagonists of The Royal We to try. Twenty year old Rebecca Porter, on a gap year from studying […]

My Chemical Renaissance

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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I am an English teacher and, as such, I regularly teach Shakespeare to high schoolers. This is nearly always met with varying degrees of trepidation; even the ones who like literature and who have a good grasp of the English language find his works somewhat daunting and often boring by default. And I get it, I do, but it’s such a shame. Once you get the hang of it and manage to pierce through the – admittedly often dense – language, Shakespeare was an absolute […]



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