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Favorable
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Booklist John Charles
Fielding's latest has all the ingredients of a good thriller--exotic locales, a resourceful heroine, intrigue, and a touch of sexy romance--but the book is also electric with Fielding's wry wit, and the combination is simply delightful. [July 2004, p.1797]
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Favorable
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Chicago Sun-Times Paige Wiser
Breezy, fast-paced and funny.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Sarah Sands
The book works as a fast-paced thriller -- I gulped it down in one reading. But it also has great charm and, in its shy fashion, a moral theme.
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Favorable
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San Francisco Chronicle Meredith Broussard
It's hard to imagine a more appealing heroine than Olivia.
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Favorable
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The Independent Helen Brown
Fielding's frenetically paced prose shimmers and glares with wit, sophistication and humanity.
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Favorable
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The New Republic Sacha Zimmerman
Making terrorism funny is no small feat, especially these days. But Fielding's plot is so rollicking you can't help but enjoy the ride.
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Favorable
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TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Terri Apter
This new literary turf is a buoyant pastiche of James Bond and Superman.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Caryn James
While Fielding can be a dazzling social observer -- and she displays enough of her old wit to send readers flying through the first, better, half of ''Olivia Joules'' -- her prose is merely functional.
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Mixed
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Village Voice Ed Park
There are early signs of vintage Fielding fizz.
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Mixed
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Los Angeles Times Carol Wolper
Fielding's wit doesn't disappoint, but to fully enjoy this book you might need, if not an overactive imagination, at least an active one.
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Mixed
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Publishers Weekly
What's wrong with the book: two-dimensional characters, dangling plot threads, the questionable taste of al-Qaeda bombings in an escapist, comic spy novel. What's right: girl-power punch, page-turning brio and a new heroine to root for.
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Mixed
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Sydney Morning Herald Charlotte Harper
The formula is clever, but not always gripping.
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Mixed
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Heather Mallick
What works, and this is why you should buy Fielding's Olivia, is that you can skip the spy bits and bounce from one cleverness to the next.
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Mixed
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The Guardian Elaine Showalter
Trading Jane Austen and Elizabeth Bennet as her literary models for Ian Fleming and James Bond, Fielding has inevitably lowered her aim and her game.
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Unfavorable
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The Independent Kim Sengupta
The pace is inconsistent, the few jokes that are mildly amusing lose their edge through repetition, and few clichés are left untouched.
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Unfavorable
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Daily Telegraph Harry Mount
All this Miss James Bond stuff might just work if Helen Fielding was artful with it - but she just doesn't do good spy.
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Unfavorable
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The New York Times Michiko Kakutani
Olivia seems like a misplaced character, doomed to wander, page by page, chapter to chapter, from one sort of novel into another, as this dreadfully plotted story meanders its way through an anthology of genres.
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Terrible
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Entertainment Weekly Karen Valby
As if she hadn't already wreaked enough havoc, Fielding has now gone and written what may be the worst novel of the year. Quick, someone throw a pink drink in her face.
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Terrible
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Houston Chronicle Pamela Mitchell
It just seems so insensitive or, as Fielding's beloved Bridget would have put it: v. v. bad.
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