himpersonal 's review for:

Codename Villanelle by Luke Jennings
4.0
adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'd seen the series on BBC years ago. Then a colleague told me it was actually originally a book series. I was so excited to find that out! The book was as good as the TV series. Fast paced, lots of action, equally represented points of view between the hero and villain, a villain I want to root for but can't because she has no conscience and there's nothing redeeming about her despite her sad origins, and a hero I want to like but can't because she's got a conscience and is still awful.

Pretty good cat-and-mouse. Hard for me to imagine the characters as other than Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer. That's both a drawback and an aid to me. I want to imagine these characters in my own knitting, but Oh and Comer were so good on the screen that I can only see these characters through their performances.