Luke Jennings

2.5 rounded up.
“Codename Villanelle” has some core workings of a fun spy thriller, namely the cat and mouse game between government operative and paid assassin, as well as boasting a slew of locations from China to London to Paris, all which make fun settings for the drama that happens.

However, these elements are sort of squandered with incredibly dry and, quite frankly, boring writing. The dialogue is missing any sort of spunk or life, and the characters themselves are FLAT. I’m reading this novel having just wrapped up watching S3 of the TV adaptation and I am deeply happy that the show was taken into fresh hands, reworked, and then directed by women because this novel just lacks VIGOR. It very much feels like the outline of a novel that was supposed to be 500 pages of exciting storytelling but then the author died and the publishing house said, “Well, let’s publish the outline anyways and see what happens?” It’s very much a case of a great book idea that has been written in a lackluster manner.
In addition to the writing of action & plot, I was disappointed (yet not truly surprised) with how Jennings writes his female characters. He just fails to really dig into their minds and instead just tells the reader how each character supposedly feels or thinks, but they lacks depth. Actually every character, not just the women, are lacking, but it's especially a letdown having a book about women doing cool, badass (and illegal) things have the writing of the women be so one-dimensional.… (altro)

Lacks everything the women bring to the TV show

After the TV show, it was rather crushing coming to find how one note airport novel this book was. The combination of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's writing and the performances of Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer breathe something real and dark and funny to what, frankly, comes off as a male masturbational fantasy and competent, but unexciting, criminal action mystery.

It has power cishet dude vibes with a slightly chaste malegaze fascination with Villanelle's lesbian experiences and an utterly jarring and disgusting moment when a character talks about falling for a trans woman, which the book seems to suggest appeals to the character because he doesn't really like men or women. This character, seeming so very in love with this woman after one night, uses slurs against her when thinking about her. At least the book and character keep up the correct pronouns for her, but imagine if he had slept with any other marginalised woman? Would the author be so quick to have the character throw around other epiphets?

Honestly, if you've watched the show, just watch it again and read something new, and/ or save this for a last minute grab at an airport, which is really what this is. I have the next one and no intention of getting to it any time soon.

I am all the more in awe at what they managed to do with the TV show after reading this. Bravo to them. Meh to this… (altro)

This book is definitely not the sort of thing I'd normally read, but it's not always a bad thing to read outside your comfort zone. Overall, I found it worthwhile but not spectacular.

There were a couple of times I almost chucked it aside at the beginning. First was the introduction of the main character Alison's romantic interest, a kind of archetypal alpha-male jerk who refused to commit, screwed around and treated her plain nasty - and she calmly puts up with it. I definitely think that dysfunctional relationships have their place in literature, but I cannot stand it when abusive relationships are treated as romantic or okay. with the author being male, I wondered if this was a kind of aspirational thing for him, which turned me off even more.

Both the blurb and the opening scene set the book up as a mystery evolving around a young actress who has disappeared without a trace. The first 100 pages of the book don't even touch that, and describe some of Alison's history as a journalist and an unrelated job. I found myself getting frustrated because I couldn't figure out what the point of it was, before finally reaching the turning point where the main story begins.

The author is a journalist himself, and I loved the fact that he knew what he was talking about when it came to Alison's career which was a large part of the story.

The conclusion was interesting and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I felt like Alison was set up as ruthless and unprincipled in the first 100 pages of the book so that the rest of the book could show how she'd become a different, better person, but the conclusion shows she's still ruthless and unprincipled.

Overall, a decent read and an interesting peek into the mind of a journalist.… (altro)