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oz617's reviews
462 reviews
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.
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.
The Tale of Tom Kitten by Beatrix Potter
lighthearted
1.75
We're fatshaming the damned kittens here...
Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974-1975 by Graham Burchell, Arnold I. Davidson, Michel Foucault, Valerio Marchetti
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.5
Occasionally quite odd to read - due in part to the nature of transcribing lectures and publishing them as books, and in part to the curiosities of translation (I've learned many mostly useless new words in my native language, and shudder at the thought of doing the same in French) - but absolutely fascinating. I've brought these ideas up in conversation several times already, and have been pleased by how easily understood they were, despite Foucault and his translator insisting on my learning words like etiology and concupiscence and onanism.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Incest, Pedophilia, Torture, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
The Awakening by L.J. Smith
3.0
The writing is bad, the romance is worse - but I read the whole thing in a couple hours and immediately started the sequel. Some really great horror scenes, at least in concept. I'm excited for the rest of the series, to see the author come into their own
The Struggle by L.J. Smith
3.0
Better than the first book. Still a dodgy romance, the writing still isn't great, but the concept is fun and you can tell the writer will be great once they've practiced more
The Fury by L.J. Smith
3.0
I'd give it four stars if it wasn't for the weird Druid obsession - which again it would be fine if the writer framed it more clearly as pretty naïve American kids getting excited about another culture's mysticism. I'm not offended by it, but speaking as a Scot it's just weird to read about Bonnie's grandmother in Edinburgh teaching her *the old ways*
Romance in Marseille by Claude McKay
2.0
In all honesty, it's probably a better book than I'm giving credit for. It was nice to read about a disabled character, and depictions of queerness, in a fairly matter of fact way. But the actual story and style were incredibly boring to read, to the point of me skimming most of it, and the language (though standard for its time) now seems so outdated that it was deeply uncomfortable to read.
Star Trek 1 by James Blish
3.0
Most of the stories don't work half as well as they did on television - but the last two or three are brilliant