oz617's reviews
461 reviews

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged by Ayisha Malik

emotional funny reflective

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The Last Dance by Mark Billingham

lighthearted medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.5

1948: The First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris

challenging slow-paced

1.0

Was willing to be charitable about Morris's intent on nuance up until the conclusion. Nauseating, the way he talks about Palestinians (and Arabs broadly), with this paternalistic tone, all while contradicting himself at every step. At one point he says Ben-Gurion was naively generous about Arab beliefs, blaming this on Ben-Gurion not having spoken Arabic, so Morris jumps in to tell us what Arabs actually believe. Except we know from the introduction that Morris does not speak Arab either, and acknowledges only Israeli archives as his sources. 

This was a useful read for me, despite it feeling like being thrown into cold water, partly as an exercise in critical thinking, partly as a test of knowledge of the screeds of Palestinian context Morris leaves out, and also just to see what's being said by a Zionist often considered moderate. To Morris's credit, he cites his sources well, and since the vast majority of them are quotes from prominent figures of the time this becomes a helpful collection of (extremely one sided) primary sources. 

The Queen of the Damned: The Third Book in The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

4.5 stars for all the arguments within that fascinate me endlessly. There's a lot going on here politically, in a way that manages to reveal something about the author while also never feeling out of character (and the characters are so beautifully different). The ideas of world peace unushered by genocide ring true, I just wished they were a little more bolstered by theory from outside the Western progressive circuit. There's something quite 19th century at times - I kept thinking "even the savages deserve rights" whenever sympathetic yet wildly inaccurate mentions were made of Africa below the Nile basin, and for all the mentions of Palestine (which, low bar, but seeing Palestine talked about without Israel is still a lovely novelty), the idea of Islam as the religion of a war god was lingering around. And why does everyone accept that the world would be better and *stay* better if we killed (almost) all the men? Love that the protagonists all recognise that's undoable and wouldn't be justified anyway, but they all agree that there'd be no murder, no rape, and especially no war, if the world was 99% women? This is the 80s, just look at Britain for a second, please.

Anyway, fundamentally this is a character novel, and that does track for these characters. Most of them are, after all, ancient, and all of them are biased (and know this. Even Marius, after recent events). I love that the message boils down to "No one needs or deserves a God stepping in to solve their problems with deceptively simple solutions, just as the global North should learn to keep it's hands out of the global South", and the characters make the arguments I believe they would make to support or contest that. I would just kill for a character who'd read Franz Fanon.

Girl A by Abigail Dean

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I truly don't know why this is described as a thriller, or a mystery. It's neither. It's a complicated and realistic portrayal of survival of child abuse, and somehow seems to be marketed towards the exact kind of true crime fans the book frequently mocks. I appreciated how ordinary the evil was, how the book contains plenty of every day accomplices to the main abuse, how there's many reasons for why it was allowed to continue from many different points of view. I'll be thinking about this one for a while, I think.

The Indiscreet Letter and Little Eve Edgarton by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Changeless by Gail Carriger

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.75

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

1.0

Very post gulf war. I can't tell what parts of the aggressive patriotism are intended as satirical or insulting. Certainly it doesn't feel like the British government here or its services are more likeable than the - and I wish I was exaggerating - evil, fat, and ugly Middle Eastern villain who wants to kill all British children, and his disfigured accomplice. That said. See aforementioned villains.

Duncton Wood by William Horwood

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Octopussy & the Living Daylights by Ian Fleming

4.0

 On first read, I wasn't quite sure what to make of these. They're not the action-filled spy thrillers I've come to expect from the cultural idea of James Bond - whether that's more specific to the movies I don't know, but I was definitely surprised by these melancholy stories, more about daily aspects of Bond's job and about the man himself. Frankly, I was expecting Octopussy to be a woman sexualised to the point of camp. Her being a literal octopus caught me off guard.

When rereading, though, I was struck by what a tragicly honest picture they paint of Bond. Here's a man who hates his job, drinks to force himself through his duties, hopes with every mistake that this will be the one they fire him for... and the narrative knows this. In these stories -especially The Living Daylights - Bond's license to kill is not glamourised. If anything, it seems to be killing him in turn.

The missing star is for Maria Freudenstein, who deserved better, KGB agent or not.