My review of The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Where do I begin? I saw the movies, all three of the original ones based on the Ludlum books, and then the fourth one with Jeremy Renner that was an “expansion” of the fallout from Jason Bourne’s actions. I thought the book was going to be great, because I absolutely loved the films. Surprisingly, not so much.
It got off to an extremely slow and dull start. I really struggled through the first couple hundred (yes, 200) or so pages. The writing seemed very tedious, like things were explicated in far more detail than seemed necessary. Finally, it got to a good pace and I was able to get through it much faster. I think it took me about 4 or 5 months to get through, and let me say that I read the last 250-300 pages in the last three or four weeks, and the rest of that time was struggling through the beginning chunk.
To those who have seen the movies, fair warning, the book is structured entirely different. There are a few familiar characters, and some of the plot points are the same–Bourne has amnesia, he meets a pretty girl named Marie who decides to help him, he used to be a spy/master assassin for the US government, sort of–but overall, it’s an entirely different story with a lot to it, including a completely new antagonist not present in the films and a slightly altered backstory to the main character’s origins.
Read the rest of the review on Goodreads
Since a review isn’t a real post for me, here’s what else is new:
I’M DONE!! Just in at over 74,000 words, this beast of a NaNo project is finally finished! (For now ;) Honestly, I’m glad to be shot of it. It was an extraordinary undertaking – both in terms of word count goals and genre attempts – one I’m not looking forward to doing again any time soon. While I’m still not sure how I feel about the story and how it turned out, I’ve warmed to it considerably over the past couple weeks since NaNoWriMo ended.
Now that the NaNo project is tabled for the moment, I can get back to editing. I was recently informed that the first call I made for beta readers was actually a misnomer. Seeing as I hadn’t edited the draft yet and had only made a couple minor corrections for typos, I was actually requesting alpha readers! Fucking Greek alphabet. In any case, I’m hoping to have a new draft ready in a few weeks (optimistically), and at that time, I’ll be looking for readers again to give me some feedback and notes on the story.
In the meantime, I have to get back to the actual editing, and since I’m nowhere near as far along as I had hoped I would be by now, it’s a little daunting. However, I’m very much looking forward to some good old-fashioned pen and paper work. My wrists and fingers could probably use the break from the old keyboard after typing out over 70k hard-fought words the past few weeks!
Grinch? Who, me?
It doesn’t really feel like the holidays to me, so I haven’t really gotten into the holiday spirit this year. We put up the tree, on time this year, and I do love seeing the Christmas lights around town, but the realization still hasn’t really set in. I think I’m just overly nostalgic and so any Christmas other than a magical, movie-reminiscent type of Christmas always feels a little less-than: no effing snow, little holiday shopping to do, a major lack of holiday music (who dropped the ball on THAT this year??), and I haven’t had time to sit down and binge on my favorite holiday movies this year either (yet). That’s probably the combined explanation for my near-grinchy ignorance of Christmas this year. Maybe I’ll just blame the day job – too much materialism and overpowering candle scents, not enough Christmas miracles and magic.
In any case, it’s hobbitses and maybe some 70s shenanigans this weekend (American Hustle)! And maybe a few Christmas movies. Just for good measure.
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