Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Word Is Murder

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

11 reviews

zlizzyv's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

It was a slow start and throughout the book it felt like Horowitz was self promoting. At first it was exciting to realize he was talking about himself, referencing books I had read before, but it soon became too much. It felt like every chapter he mentioned one of his works, and it didn’t add to the plot in any meaningful way. I didn’t get fully hooked on the storyline until halfway in, partially because of this.

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alisonvh's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

A solid homage to Holmes and Watson, especially if Holmes had been a manipulative prick.

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tweesee_93's review against another edition

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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? Yes

4.25

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xxkatastrophe's review

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adventurous dark 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

3.0

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thebookpaiges's review

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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leebeeloves's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

Fun, almost a cosy mystery but a lot more gruesome. Curious to see where this grumpy-sunshine duo goes from here.

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ambermahalia's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

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emilygv's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but a pretty cover has yet to let me down.

There was a point early on at which I'd debated dropping this book (the very beginning, aside from the wonderful first chapter that had me hooked, I found to be a bit slow. purely personal preference), and (aside from that) Hawthorne's sudden

homophobic outburst

definitely caught me off guard, but I'm glad I stuck with it to the end.

I'm definitely a fan of Horowitz's writing style. I'm not even quite sure what it is (the descriptions? the balance of dialogue? the vocabulary choices?), but it stood out to me so much that I had to make note of it.

There's definitely some big Agatha Christie vibes that I got while reading, which I loved. And I'm almost embarrassed to say that I didn't realize the whole Holmes/Watson dynamic was intentional for several chapters.

I loved how even the smallest details in the descriptions ended up contributing to the big reveal. I didn't figure it out myself, but it was fun looking through all the early chapters to come to some smaller realizations that Horowitz would proceed to describe in the following pages.

Horowitz the narrator being a self insert character took some getting used to, especially with a few lengthy descriptions of his other projects thrown in, but the insights that came along with it really added to the experience in my personal opinion (though I've read some reviews with the opposite point of view).

I've already placed a hold on the next book in the series!

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bluejayreads's review

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I am not much of a mystery person. I picked this up on concept alone – that the author is taking self-insert to the extreme and putting himself, as himself, into the novel as the Watson-esque sidekick to a modern-day Holmes.

The concept did bring a unique meta aspect into the story. Since at least one of the characters was verifiably real, it gave an almost-nonfiction feel to this fictional novel and I did enjoy that. However, that’s the only good thing I can say about this book.

I’ll start with my minor quibble: Horowitz’s motivation to start writing for Hawthorne is weak. He initially refused to do it when Hawthorne asked. Then he went to a book fair, where a woman asked him why he only wrote fantasy instead of things that were real and true, which are objectively better to read about. His response was that he preferred it, which is perfectly valid. Leaving aside my blinding rage about nonfiction being presented as always and forever 100% more valuable than fiction and it’s not worth reading fiction if one could read nonfiction instead, this exchange makes Horowitz decide that he should write something “real” for once and change his mind about writing for Hawthorne. He didn’t need the money and he didn’t even particularly like Hawthorne, but I guess that exchange made him realize that nonfiction is inherently better than fiction and he should try writing something true for a change.

But I kept going because I was a bit intrigued by the mystery. And honestly, I really like Sherlock Holmes and I know Anthony Horowitz is a good writer (I loved his Alex Rider books as a kid), and I kept hoping it would get better.

Hawthorne is very much like Holmes in many ways. He does have Holmes’ seemingly-magical deductive ability, but in the first 25% of the book you get to see it in action several times but only once with the explanations that make Sherlock Holmes books fun. Hawthorne also captures all of the asshole parts of the original Sherlock but without any of the charm. Perhaps it’s because Horowitz doesn’t live with Hawthorne and therefore didn’t get to see the humanizing moments like Watson did with Holmes, but Hawthorne is an incredibly unlikeable person. I gave up when he went on a homophobic rant – which was challenged by Horowitz, to be fair, but it was still a moment that made me realize that this guy, who I wanted very much to be a modern Sherlock Holmes, was in no way shape or form tolerable to read about.

Also, the original Sherlock seemed to like Watson at least some, or at least recognize that he could be useful. Hawthorne seems to have nothing but hatred and contempt for Horowitz, and if I had been Anthony I would have ducked out the first time I got yelled at for doing the thing he asked me to do.

This book ended up being modern Sherlock Holmes but worse. It captures all of the negative aspects of the original Holmes, amplifies many of them, and downplays the best part about Holmes – the amazing deductive reasoning powers. It leans so hard on the Sherlock Holmes parallels, even in the book itself, that I can’t separate it out to judge the story on its own merits. But Hawthorne himself is terrible and unlikeable, so I can’t imagine I would have enjoyed it much regardless.

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