Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Hallowe'en Party

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

13 reviews

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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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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agoldendear's review against another edition

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2.0

It wasn’t my favorite Agatha Christie, unfortunately. I found a lot of the investigation boring and repetitive, and there was hardly any Halloween at all. :( There is also just so much “back in my day, people weren’t committing so many crimes”, which was particularly grating.

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judassilver's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

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heini's review against another edition

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sad medium-paced

1.0

It felt like every. single. thing. was repeated at least twice. I was almost starting to think it was some sort of number three-motif but no.
Very boring and very predictable.

A child as a murder victim is always horrible to read about, but the way Agatha Christie (repeatedly) described the murder felt out of place.
Although she does this often, describes and introduces everyone matter-of-factly by their "flaws" (everyone is ugly, annoying, stupid, horse-faced, too thin or too fat, too young or too old, doesn't dress well etc.) it is uncomfortable when she does it to children. She treats her cut-out characters the same, adult or not.

I had to check twice the year this was published (1969) since there was so much talk about The Good Old Days not only from Poirot but the same exact thoughts repeated by every slightly older character.
Especially saddening was the way they talked about mental illness and increasing crime rates.

Sometimes it's hard for me to discern what are Christie's own personal thoughts, what's critique and what's from a charcter. Poirot is especially unlikeable when trying to teach moral lessons:

in his opinion a ten year child got what he deserved (murder by drowning) because he Understood the consequenses of blackmailing someone for money. Ffs.

I've been listening to Poirot audiobooks too much this year. Would not recommend. Christie is enjoyable in small doses, otherwise all her weird fucked up thoughts (anti-semitism, misogony, sexism etc.) just stand more and more out book by book and you realize it's all negativity, all the time.

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cocopeia's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? No

3.25

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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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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? Yes

2.0

I picked this up at random but honestly didn’t really care for it. There was detailed settings immersing you into the world but there was no character development, the overall plot fell flat, and it was incredibly misogynistic. There were also some terms through I that I didn’t like and while it might have been published 2001 it’s still pathetic. Honestly, I was just waiting for it to end. I only finished it out of spite.

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