Review: Casino Royale

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I honestly think my opinion of this book would've been better if I hadn't been bombarded with films about James Bond since childhood. Seriously. I mean, I saw the movie Casino Royale with Daniel Craig a bunch of times. Hell! I saw all of them a bunch of times. I love his character if not the actor playing him at the time.

But,

The fact is, after so many films, you form a certain understanding of the character. Your own image.

This James Bond? I honestly did not recognize him at first. His harsh behavior. His cold attitude. Nothing felt familiar and it really looked like I was reading about some other character. Not a bad one, don't take me the wrong way. Just you know...incredibly different.

Happened the same thing 1st time I saw James Bond played by Daniel Craig. I hated it. I felt like I didn't know him at all and the actor sucked (sorry Daniel #notsorry). Turns out Daniel Craig's way of portraying James was actually more accurate than I've ever seen before. I see that now after reading this book. James really is a cold-hearted son of a b*tch in this book.

(Congrats, Daniel. Turns out you don't completely suck.)

That being said...I still love him. Possibly even more. James not Daniel. I still hate Daniel.

(Yeah. I'm weird.)

So..I blah blah blah'ed and didn't really say anything right? Wait, I'm about to make sense!

This was awesome but short. I felt incredibly cheated by that ending even though I completely expected it. It was really abrupt. The language and writing takes a little getting used to. The background is amazingly detailed and, again, awesome but that also means I got bored a couple times. Not a good thing in a less than 200 pages novel. Vesper disappointed me. The actress that played her in the movie deserves a lot of recognition because her character on paper was interesting for only about five minutes. Her duplicity fooled only James. I did like Mathis a lot more though. Kudos for that.

Overall I am not sorry I gave this book a chance. I am in fact very anxious to read the rest of the series while I await the new Bond film later this year.



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