Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Hallowe'en Party

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie

9 reviews

leosaki's review against another edition

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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rochelleisreading's review against another edition

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funny mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

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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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hannahcstocks's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-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

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miastr's review against another edition

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mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

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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