Bagtree's Reviews > The Bourne Identity

This book caused me pain. Intense boredom, odd moments of indignation, and pain. It's poorly-paced. The prose is a clunky, redundant, pointlessly vague affront to all that is good in the English language. The dialogue is stilted and horrid. The characters are so robotic I begin to question whether Ludlum ever met a human being, and the "romance" is not only horribly oversold BUT PREDICATED ON BOURNE USING HIS LOVE INTEREST AS A HUMAN SHIELD. I don't care how many rapists a man rescues you from; if he introduces himself by slapping, shaking, and threatening to shoot you, HE IS NOT BOYFRIEND MATERIAL and that relationship SHOULD NOT BE SHOWN AS LOVING AND WONDERFUL.

And seriously, the prose is awful. Get Carlos! Trap Carlos! False! Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain! Find a man! Some nonsense about traps! Maybe if I repeat the same meaningless statements over and over and italicize everything and sprinkle liberally with exclamation marks, people will - - people will what? I can't even begin to think of a rationale for that.

And I want my afternoon back.