Reviews with content warning for Death - Hallowe'en Party

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

32 reviews

anenome's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

Intriguing at the start, a long drag in the middle then riveting at the end. I was turning the pages so fast to find out who the murderer was, and I was surprised.

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sarah_royal04's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

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mollyb13's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Not one of my favorite Hercule Poirot books. This one felt especially dated in some of the terms/language used, especially around mental health, which is a bit surprising as it is one of the later books Christie wrote (though still in 1969 so I guess not that surprising). Setting that aside, the murder mystery was decent - nothing special, but it kept me interested. And Mrs. Ariadne Oliver was a gem as always! The phrase 'these days' was used CONSTANTLY throughout the book - so much so that I started cracking up every time it happened! Murders are becoming acceptable these days, women marry whomever they want these days, you don't know who your kids are playing with these days, etc... I felt like Agatha Christie was just airing complaints or something lol! I wanted to read this before seeing the new movie, A Haunting in Venice, which is based on Hallowe'en Party. I'm interested to see how this one will adapt to the screen and how they will modernize it! I feel like they did a pretty good job with Orient Express and Death on the Nile!

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leosaki's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

It's actually incredibly easy to figure out who the murderer is in Hercule Poirot books, you just put him in a room with all the suspects and whoever he's most attracted to probably did it

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bl00dsuccker's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

this book to me was too slow and the writing was confusing, maybe because it was written in the 1960’s but i didn’t enjoy it and imo the author made it too easy to figure out who killed joyce, i would have liked a little bit of mystery and confusion, instead i instantly knew who killed the little girl and i don’t like that.

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itsheyfay's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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emilywemily6's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Reading this book made me want to read more complex mystery stories like Christie’s work, but this book has some downfalls. The dialogue was very repetitive and contained a lot of tasteless assumptions that were common during the time period. But people went on and on about how delinquent the youth of the day were and how mentally unstable people were roaming the streets because asylums had no space and blaming all the murders on one or the other population. It was tedious, insensitive, and happened so often throughout the book. I also felt like the pacing was generally slow but consistent until the last 30 pages when the story ramped up and then you were still learning facts about the mystery on the last page of the book. It ended too abruptly for me. I love how all the details came together, especially all the scapegoats and red herrings, but the story itself had a lot of filler in the form of insensitive and ridiculous comments.

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bookwyrmknits's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

I enjoyed this story—and it's one of the few Christie books where I've guessed whodunnit* and why—but it's a lesson in public domain publishing as well. The copy that I read was an ebook I picked up cheap with "public domain" listed as the publisher, and the quality is very poor. Sentence and paragraph breaks in odd places were the worst offender. So, note to self: pay a little more next time and get a copy published by someone willing to put their name on it. I would have enjoyed this story more, I feel, had I not been reading such a poor quality copy of it. (Side note: the cover image on my copy is NOT the one shown here.)

* one of whodunnit, anyway

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