Story of O

Rating:
Summary: A dry classic
Review: I heard a lot of hype about this book and decided to go and read it.
I was expecting something in the sense of Anne Rice with her sleeping beauty novels.
Well, this novel is much more hard core than that. Ok, it's not that I am not open minded about things like that, because I am very acceptant usually. But I thought that the whole point of sadism and masochism was not the pain, but the love. The "slaves" want to be abused by their masters so that they feel like they belong, like they are living and enjoying the moment, that they are loved because of their suffering.

But you don't really see much of that in this book. It's not really deep and it doesn't go in a lot of detail about anything, except the dry descriptions of the acts. You can't really tell what O is feeling, so a connection to the characters is basically impossible. And again, it seems like all is done for nothing, because (SPOILER! ) her "master" leaves her in the end. For him she is nothing, so he doesn't really care cause he had his fun. She, however, instead of moving to another master like she should have done if she wanted to continue the lifestyle, she asked permission to kill herself from her master. I think that is really sad and absolutley stupid.
I gave it 3 stars because of its boldness with the subject for being written in the 70's/.

Rating:
Summary: A story of a woman's self-discovery and self-actualization
Review: Besides being an amazingly well-written story from a literary perspective, the storyline is timeless.

If you don't find yourself identifying with either O or Rene by the second chapter, this is probably not a book that you will appreciate. Contrary to other reviewers, I don't feel The Story of O is a good BDSM primer. You will either see yourself in this novel or you will not.



Rating:
Summary: The Story of O
Review: This is an excellent story.
If you wish to learn Domination or Submission in your sexual relationships buy this book.
Phillip.

Rating:
Summary: Come down off of your BDSM and erotic soapbox.
Review: It seems many of these readers are into BDSM or looking to get off. (If that's what your looking for go to thehun.net and save yourself some time) I was just looking to read a good book, and was neither of the above. It's a great book, intense none the less, but entertaining and stimulating. Don't look too deep into and you won't be able to get up until you've finished. I know I kept wanting to sneak a peak at the last chapter to find out where it was headed. I must say I was slightly disappointed with the end, but I appreciate why it was written as such. Don't look into it, enjoy it.
M

Rating:
Summary: so misunderstood
Review: I am not into BDSM, besides maybe a spark of curiosity and I read this book and found it fascinating. Read the review that talks about existentialism as I'm not going to repeat it here, but there's a lot more to the book than appears on the surface - a simple story about a woman and her lover. You have to dig a little deeper.