Codename Villanelle

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.

This was barely a 3. It just flat.

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.

Some weeks back I happened to catch the first two episodes of Killing Eve. But I did not want to shell out money to see the next episodes. Then I decided to track down the book the show is based on. (Turns out there are three books of which this is the first). Naturally it's a bit different than the show but this was serious fun. I zipped through it. There's multiple assassinations, a bunch of kinky sex, and two excellent characters in Villanelle and Eve. I want more.

Excellent and so much better than the TV show. The portrayal of a self-aware sociopath is very well done.

2.5 stars The show is so much better. That's all I have to say. I gave it 2 stars because Villanelle's parts were fascinating. She is one of my absolute favourite characters.