Reviews - Murder on Sex Island: A Luella van Horn Mystery

450 reviews for:

Murder on Sex Island: A Luella van Horn Mystery

Jo Firestone

3.76 AVERAGE

lweezthereadrat's review against another edition

2.0

lighthearted medium-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

The premise is so much fun but I think this might be my biggest disappointment for premise to execution for reads this year. Firestone has hampered her protagonist with several needless impediments which would be fun if they throw up obstacles to solving the murder, but instead they stop her from talking with suspects?! The investigation is largely glossed over and huge clues are left hanging but there's a very convenient explanation about how the protagonist had figured all of that out already. It might be aping a Christie format but this really fell flat for me and was incredibly light on jokes. I think it would've worked a lot better as a miniseries but even then there are a lot of contrivances to turn a blind eye to.

mahrainey's review

2.0

mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

While the title makes it seem obvious that this would not be good, I was hoping for a more tightly written and clever satirical look at reality tv dating shows. Instead, as always seems to be the case with books with titles like this, I got try hard comedy and plenty of plot holes. Easy read, but even at just around 200 pages it felt like it could’ve been trimed down a lot.