amandawhit 's review for:

A Perfect Spy by John le Carré

3.0

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I read this for the Mass Center for the Book 2025 Reading Challenge. The prompt was to read something set or published in the year of your birth. I chose to read le Carre's A PERFECT SPY because my reading trends heavily toward books published in the past decade. I was surprised at how the style seemed for reminiscent of what we would consider "classic" literature vs contemporary, but I guess 1986 is further away from the present than I'd care to admit. I found the style confusing with the constant POV and voice changes and often had little to no clue what was happening. Like many dual timeline novels, I cared much more for one of the storylines, in this case the present day. I liked learning about Pym's journey to spycraft, but while I understand that Rick's story had a massive influence on Pym's ability to be "a perfect spy", I didn't care much about it. I would have preferred more of Pym's interiority. The writing seemed distant. Lastly, I had issues the way the female characters were presented as simply sexual object, but I guess that's to be expected in a novel from the 80s written by a man.