Reviews - The Night Manager

434 reviews for:

Review 2 (2019): “I rewatched the series again recently so decided to give the book another go. This time I landed on 2/5 stars. The story is pretty solid, albeit convoluted and unnecessarily confusing at parts, but this time I was struck by how misogynistic this book is. Every female character seems to be 2D: a caricature or a stereotype. If they aren’t a sexy mistress or a dull wife (with all of the authority slots taken by men), they’re an overblown & ridiculous civil servant who isn’t to be taken seriously by anyone. Very disappointing.”

Review 1 (2016): “If I had read this before watching the BBC adaptation then I think my rating would've been 4/5. However, the TV version was the best programme I have ever watched. It featured my two favourite actors in the lead roles, and I enjoyed every second. I much preferred the character development, pace, and ending of the adaptation, and felt that the book was just too slow. Saying that though, I did really enjoy this book and think it deserves a solid 3.5/5.”

heykylie's review against another edition

3.0

I started this book as soon as I watched the trailer for the miniseries airing in the US on AMC this month, starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie because there is no way I'm not watching that.
I'm not sure if it's because I've been reading more non-fiction lately, but getting into this book was a struggle. For a book about spying and undercover identities and government fraud, this was a slow burner with many chapters through out that were too boring to read thoroughly. However, these more boring chapters were balanced out with brilliant, clever, and intense chapters as well.
Recommend if you don't mind slower-paced books. Hard to keep track of the government side of things, in my opinion. Language warning.

saraleoni's review against another edition

3.0

Reminded me a lot of Robert Ludlum's books, which I enjoy. The political parts of it were occasionally hard to follow as the British system, or at least their titles, are unfamiliar to me; I never did figure out who "the Cousins" were. I loved the TV series and it was very faithful to the book but the series focused more on Pine while the book was more on the politics. The ending of the series was, in my opinion, better than the book's but then the technology want available when the book was written. Plus, the book leaves more room for a sequel.

jfcbooks's review against another edition

4.0

emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

marianneiriss's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

softlysuited's review against another edition

5.0

mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

mepresley's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It’s a good book and is well-plotted. I enjoyed Pine as the main character & Burr, and also poor Goodhew, and as far as villains go, Roper was decent and his henchman Corkoran was also kind of a hoot. I was surprised by how beautiful the prose could be in a spy novel. Le Carre takes his time with description in a way I appreciate and he does a marvelous job at painting luxury and drawing different locales vividly.

On the other hand, it was sometimes difficult to keep up with the characters and their allegiances without flipping back, and I didn’t love that Jed and Sophie were basically two versions of the same girl, or that Pine was such a

sex god. Just didn’t do it for me, everyone falling over themselves to fall in love with and/ or fuck him. I also didn’t really care for the ending of the novel; it was cool—Burr’s last-minute Hail Mary was genius—and it avoided an unrealistic happy ending, but it felt anti-climactic.