Codename Villanelle
Ratings24
Average rating3
The breakneck thriller that inspired TV sensation Killing Eve, starring Sandra Oh, "unlike any other spy drama you've seen" (Daily Beast). Villanelle (a codename, of course) is one of the world's most skilled assassins. A catlike psychopath whose love for the creature comforts of her luxurious lifestyle is second only to her love of the game, she specializes in murdering the world's richest and most powerful. But when she murders an influential Russian politician, she draws a relentless foe to her tail. Eve Polastri (not a codename) is a former MI6 operative hired by the national security services for a singular task: to find and capture or kill the assassin responsible, and those who have aided her. Eve, whose quiet and otherwise unextraordinary life belies her quick wit and keen intellect, accepts the mission. The ensuing chase will lead them on a trail around the world, intersecting with corrupt governments and powerful criminal organizations, all leading towards a final confrontation from which neither will emerge unscathed. Codename Villanelle is a sleek, fast-paced international thriller from an exciting new voice in fiction.
Series
Featured Series
3 primary booksKilling Eve
Killing Eve is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2014 with contributions by Luke Jennings.
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge really elevated and feminized the mediocre source material here. But while it was going fine enough, at least half-interesting and certainly not well written but ok enough to see it to the end - NOPE - it turned disgustingly outright transphobic. And I'm not talking Jennings is content with an “evil tranny” stereotype, he actually published “chick with a dick.” Unfortunately Goodreads won't allow below a 1 star, but this is 0 stars, STRONGLY do not recommend. Let's just go on as if the show is sui generis because these garbage views don't deserve more eyeballs.
Finished it after weeks of procrastinating. It's great, I think. Book V is really different from Killing Eve's Villanelle but I suppose they're okay :) I don't know when I'll start reading the other books because I already forgot what happened in this book, lol.
I don't think I would have wanted to watch the TV show, Killing Eve, if I would have read the book first. I have a dilemma now. I didn't particularly like the ending of the TV show and I wanted to read the book ending, but the book is surprisingly disappointing.
I liked Villanelle way more in the show. The book tries to portray her as a psychopathic assassin, but the show did that so much better. There's a lot more context to Villanelle in the book and somehow that takes away from her. There's also a lot of sex going on, not explicit, but I really don't see the point of it.
The Eve from the TV show and the one from the book resemble each other better so far, but I'm afraid a discrepancy is incoming. But before that, I liked that she's changing slowly and smoothly.
The book is not gripping, I didn't find myself wanting to find out more, I really only want to read because so far it has been so different from the TV show and I wonder what else I could find out about everyone and everything.
I'm going to try the next book as well, but at this point I am expecting to drop the series. Maybe I'll just go ahead and read the last book only, despite the fact that there are quite a few characters that did not exist in the series and vice-versa and I might not understand exactly what's happening.
Edit: Or I'll just read the whole series as I just figured out there are two books left, three total. The series is so confusing, I thought there were six books.
Edit2: I initially rated this book 2 stars, I did that only because of the show, but it really doesn't deserve the 2 stars, so I'm lowering the rating.
