It was time, I can’t believe I hadn’t read any yet (and admittedly I have only seen a few of the movies also). I decided to finally get around to reading the first James Bond super spy book. Let’s talk about Casino Royale.

I gave this book 2.5 stars, which might already give you insight into what I thought of the book personally.

The first half of the book was super dull. There were lots of explanations on how care games were played… ugh. I get it, the premise of the book is about Bond trying to break into a card game and win money away from a bad guy. But did we really need to get a blow by blow for card games written down for pages at a time? Highlights would have been better. Alongside this, we also got scenes of Bond just hanging about and preparing to do spy work… which might be a little realistic, but not very interesting to read about.

Then, in an almost abrupt change, we get quite intense excitement that finally happens! It is a welcome change, and while I would have liked more of it, the actual scenes are shorter than hoped. They are littered with an odd “romantic tension” that feels forced and unromantic.

Finally, as we get to the bend of closing out the story, we have some pretty extreme and horrendous torture (which is mostly alluded to specifics, but you somehow follow along as the scenes unfold… shudder), followed by an unusual sort of romance… I don’t know if Ian Flemming ever had a real relationship, but honestly, this was super cringe. I get it, without spoilers, this particular one was complicated, but honestly it felt stiff and passionless while trying to convince us it had loads of passion.

Like reading two different books, it was a bit of whiplash story wise, though character wise it was consistent.

I was expecting misogyny, but was surprised with less than I thought, though it was still there and annoying. You have to read something like this with an eye to the times it was written, so mostly I can forgive as I read with that lens on.

Another annoyance for me was that there were other languages thrown in with no explanation of what they meant. So if you actually wanted to know, you either have to speak it or search it to see. It wasn’t monumentally important to the story but frustrating.

It wasn’t poorly written, in fact, for what it was it was pretty well done, it just was not for me. I am not really the target audience (that would be mostly dudes who wanted a tough spy who was smart, has all the gadgets and cars, and could get any girl he wanted if he wanted it).

So, after that experience I still own another Bond book. I have enough respect for the spy character that I will probably give the 00 another go (see what I did there?), and hope that the story is better.

See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace