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Casino Royale (James Bond, #1)

Ian Fleming

Start date: August 1, 2015

Finish date: August 31, 2015

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Aug 19, 2015 Whitney rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was a great quick read! I love all the descriptions about luxury that occur between acts of espionage, cunning, and near-death. Bond is a guy who likes his expensive food, fast cars, lots of cocktails, everything first class. And he knows a lot about the cut of a dress--wait, what? Yeah, for a book that has such a masculine marketing objective, this first book in the series seems to struggle with sexual orientation. Every chapter just contains one fight after another against everything that ...more

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Jan 05, 2017 Jill rated it really liked it

At times, particularly earlier in the book, Casino Royale, doesn't quite translate well into modern times. I was prepared for the blatant misogyny and the gimmicky gadgets (which never came, actually) and I know that Bond (and Fleming) is a man of his time, but the sexist name calling and patronization was still hard to swallow.

Up until the last scenes, I thought to myself, "Can I really give a classic book a 2? Really not into this." Thankfully, I didn't have to make that choice thanks to the ...more

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