Not sure why I do this myself, reading these horrid books that uphold everything I despise about Occidental culture. Still, the female narrator was a pleasant novelty. Oh, no, she was neither well written nor believable, but it was different. Actually charming in a more vaguely offensive way than the usual sexism and racism I've come to expect from Fleming. It was a funny little fairy tale, but not much of a spy story in the end.

as with all bond books this one had great action and was a fun easy read. perspective seemed force but that's usual when Fleming writes as if from a woman.

The premise sounded interesting (first person POV, following a woman who eventually runs into Bond), but it was full of stereotypes and poor writing. And it actually read like an apology of Bond's sexism and machismo. Except that it wasn't convincing at all.

And by the way, if you've seen the movie with the same title, they don't share the same plot at all.

A failure worth a look.

The peak of Fleming's sexism, really. In what he probably thought at the time was a darn good crack at the female psyche actually turned out to be a severely misogynistic and terribly ill-considered novel. Bonus: contains perhaps one of the most offensive lines in mainstream literature.

Vivienne Michel is arguably the most three dimensional “Bond Girl” so far in the books, mostly due to this being written in first person from her POV. We get a lot of backstory about how her first two loves were terrible men who took advantage and hardened her to men (whether you think it’s done well is a whole other discussion, but I was surprised by Flemings efforts to give her agency and complicated feelings). When the gangsters show up she gets a few action scenes before James Bond shows up.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this book, and what almost pushes me to bump this to four stars, is how it handles the mythos of “James Bond”. To her he is the knight in shining armor who slayed the dragon and proceeds to almost immediately bed her. In her mind it’s romantic and a show of love, The Spy Who Loved Me indeed! But he’s gone before she can even wake up. He helps her out with the police, but the police captain gets a great “THIS is what this book is actually about” speech where he says in plain words that James Bond may be on the side of the “good guys” but he’s just as capable of being violent and brutal and to stay away from men like that. Hearing this, Vivienne thinks back to when Bond first showed up and upon seeing him thought “He must be one of them!” Which says all there is to say. Even though this ends with her riding off into the sunset disagreeing with the captain and saying she will always love James Bond, it’s pretty clear to me that Fleming wanted to set the record straight with how he felt about Bond.

Is this very good? No. But it IS probably the most interesting entry in the series, a book that is essentially the trials and tribulations of a French Canadian girl for 80 pages until James Bond shows up and does his thing. This is at very least better than Live and Let Die and Diamonds Are Forever. Hardly the worst in this series like many say.

It's as though Fleming lost a bet and was challenged to write a book from the perspective of the Bond girl. I can't imagine many authors more ill-suited for this task than, well, Fleming. Or maybe times have changed enough between now and 1962 that Fleming's work was destined to be dated.

Misogyny aside, I had trouble with his attempts at portraying New York gangsters. Their dialogue was just... stilted and awkward, and just bad. The book finally hits familair territory when 007 shows up, but when he starts talking about those tough gangs of Toronto, I had to laugh...