Reviews - The Spy Who Loved Me

197 reviews for:

The Spy Who Loved Me

Ian Fleming

3.03 AVERAGE

krookc's review against another edition

3.0

Last 2/3 of the book was good. Otherwise I ask myself, had Ian Fleming ever met a woman??

latterature's review against another edition

3.0

Ian Fleming doesn't write women as sex objects, or at least not in the manner that the term is typically used. The literary Bond girls are, in fact, fleshed out characters with fears and desires and dreams. The only criticism is that their respective character arcs inevitable ends with them realizing that every single one of their problems will be solved by James Bond's penis. This phenomenon is amplified in The Spy Who Loved Me, the only Bond novel written entirely from the perspective of 007's romantic conquest and in which the superspy only makes his appearance in the final third of the story; like the fictional Vivienne Michel, the reader is left waiting around for Bond to show up and save them. It was an experiment Fleming would never try again; when the Bond film rights were sold to Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, they were permitted to use the story's title and nothing else.

Having said that, The Spy Who Loved Me is not badly written at all, just entirely at odds with the rest of the series, and once the reader has accepted this, there is no reason why they won't appreciate it as a hardboiled, pulpy-thriller in its own right.

orangeliger7's review against another edition

4.0

My full review: https://youtu.be/DfBT1cqyzV0

A fresh take and a return to form for the bond books. While the stakes are very low in this story I found it refreshing to take a step back into that world. While this is still not a top Bond book it is still worth the read. I personally appreciated the female prospective and thought it added a nice change of pace.

hanyushidae's review against another edition

2.5

lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

ros77uk's review against another edition

1.0

This is written as if by one of the 'Bond girls': an interesting idea, but not one of Fleming's best, I think. And that is definitely my personal opinion; others might think it is terrific.

jcpdiesel21's review against another edition

1.0

Spectacularly bad and painfully dull at times. Penning an entry of this series where Bond is a secondary character within someone else's story is a clever idea, but Fleming fails to make it work or effectively capture a female perspective. There is far too much sexual assault portrayed here and so much of it is disturbingly passed off as normal. Bond doesn't show up until over halfway through the book, swooping in at the nick of time to save damsel in distress Viv and defeat the bad guys in his usual manner, and then claims Viv as his prize only to disappear immediately after sleeping with her. The story ends with a patronizing lecture to Viv from a police officer about the dangers of men involved on either side of crime and espionage, because clearly she is too dumb to figure this out with her tiny ladybrain that has been scrambled after her exquisite night of lovemaking with Bond. Gross. To top it off, the villains are painfully ordinary with no interesting characteristics, trying to pull off a mere insurance scam. A massive disappointment all around; no wonder Fleming tried to suppress as many elements of it as possible after publication.