Mr Fred
Remarkable. In the beginning, the book made it hard for me to take the characters seriously, because the author spent a lot of effort describing the main character's horniness and obviously fake dislike for her "chiseled" love interest, and it felt very extra to me in the same way that porn often has the most preposterous plot line obviously pushed away by the action that's about to happen.
But as the book went on the characters filled with meaning, the dragons became relatable and empathizing with the good guys became really easy as the action started to heat up.
I ended up really enjoying this one.
A good and entertaining read, written in the lead up to Charles' coronation. What I liked about this is the disdain Bond has for the villain and his henchmen, and I laughed at the political references exposing the far right the world over for the cosplaying buffoons they are.
Of course, while Higson lets the character briefly introspect, he stops short of exploring the self hatred and biting cynicism that so defines the classic literary Bond.
Even as his love interest might have double crossed him and asks him later if he ever indeed thought of her as a “bitch”, he lies “no, I'm in awe of you”, in a way the old Bond never would have.
Perhaps an older, wiser Bond went to therapy and worked out some of his issues?
A good thriller that kept me turning pages, and Ray Mason remains a proper antihero for us to root for, sorta. Though the plot (satanist ritual killings??) was as preposterous as it sounds at first blush, and spinning a deeper and deeper conspiracy around it doesn't make up for how much of it hinges on this ridiculous premise.
Suspending disbelief makes it an enjoyable novel still, but I still wish it was just a little bit less whack to begin with.
Alas
A great memoir about a game designer that's been responsible for some of my fondest childhood memories playing Civilization with my brother on our family PC. Not only is this a great trip down memory lane, Sid also shares some insightful principles of his about game design and ultimately user experience design in software products - no software genre focuses so relentlessly on the person in front of the screen, and in a world that has at times shifted toward treating players more like a wallet with a keyboard than the focus of attention, Sid remains uncompromising and clearly, one of the greatest of all times.
An enjoyable book. As it repeatedly builds up more absurdity it sometimes stops for some self awareness, and in the end all puzzle pieces somehow mysteriously fit together. Despite the assertions of whatever wasn't the plan and needed improvised, the plot twists land just a hair short of predictable.
And yet, if you routinely find yourself rooting for the villain (but not really) I think you too will have fun with this.
Short and sweet, a good and comprehensive view on service submission, its motivations, expressions, and facets.
It is great to see how much nuance there is to the topic, and how easy it is to pull from the many options described here, to assemble a very individual flavor of service.
No matter your type of relationships, if there's a power dynamic to them, and if you'd like any flavor of service to be part of that equation, this is a good book to read, and reference to keep going back to later.
An outstanding book zooming in on various advanced techniques and categories of power exchange. I enjoyed the level of detail and consideration given to each, and the empowering messages directed at both the dominant and submissive partners. Fulmen understands that both sides of the slash, when approached with sufficient depth, are places of tremendous vulnerability, but also deep opportunities for fulfillment and liberation and therefore worthy of courageous exploration despite what others might say or think or prescribe. I also like that he points out common pitfalls with nuance and empathy, some of which I wish I had read about in the past before I stumbled over them myself. Alas.
Sooo, I stand corrected. I was reluctant to pick up this book, not because I wasn't interested in the subject matter (quite the opposite) but because I expected to find either “the basic things comprehensive sex ed should have taught you long ago”, or a self-indulgent manifesto of goddess worship, not least due to the cringeworthy tropical fruit on the cover.
Instead, a pleasant surprise. The author managed to give a structured, anatomically correct overview over this woefully underexplored topic, and gives tangible instructions and advice in a way that respects both the giver and receiver, and feels very informative and empowering in the process. As a result, I recommend this book to any adult whose partner has the relevant body configuration, whether you have a lot to learn about this or very little. It'll make you more adventurous, and more confident, both incredibly attractive properties. And who wouldn't want that?
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go have a snack.
Papaya, incidentally.
Perhaps the most appropriate day to finish this book, new year's eve, and I can't help but love it - a book about idiots. Idiots that are parents, lovers, children, friends, and anything in between, discovering the deep truths of their lives a little by force, a little by fortune. A reminder that other people are both the cause of, and solution to, all of the heartache, everywhere.
This is a difficult book, and the very polarized reviews show it – a fictional and yet impressively honest and unashamed portrait of a woman who is submissive not as an attempt to spice up an otherwise insignificant sex life for 15 minutes, but as the very fabric she is woven out of as a human being. The affluent men running a secret Parisian sex society are invented, the fabric is not.
Of course, those who picked up this book to get their rocks off on erotica remain disappointed by the lack of extended fornication, and while the book is exceedingly graphic, it isn't parading endless pornographic scenes around in front of the reader.
Almost as disappointed as those who express their commitment to feminism primarily by telling women how they should lead their lives and which kinks are acceptable for them to have (how ironic, truly).
But if we make it past all of these hurdles and can accept O for what she longs to be, perhaps we learned what Pauline Réage had to teach.
A decent book adding to the ever growing list of emergency physicians and other medical folk pouring their experiences into the written form.
I enjoyed the read, though I also found a one hour prologue consisting almost entirely of text messages during the COVID era a little off-putting. It felt less like a story the author wanted to tell, and more like a scaring indictment of the American medical system. Which it deserves, but seemed terribly out of place in a book dedicated to the experiences of an ER doctor at work. This was not about the people who suffered from the first COVID wave but about the Trump administrations unwillingness to provide proper medical equipment to healthcare workers.
However once you get past this extended rant, it's a an emotionally challenging journey through a single day of an ER doctor's experience, touching on a great number of ethical and medical dilemmas and insights.
A great book about open relationships in general and rejecting “mononormativity” in particular, and about the various flavors of n-dimensional relationships that exist and people make work for them. Highly recommended reading, whether you're dreaming of an 8-people polycule or even if it has just always irked you when random people want to tell you how to behave as a spouse, and you refuse to let it be anyone's business but you and your partner's.