A review by daffodilcherry
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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

2.0

NEGATIVE REVIEW: Had heard rave things about this book, but was disappointed! As a whodunit lover I wouldn't recommend it. With 115 chapters in 380 pages, the POV shifts and repetitive telling (not showing) of scenes was very annoying. Top of the annoying choice list was the random journal excerpts from Joyce, told in first person. Overall, the various plots, characters and murders were overly complicated and Osman failed to provide enough information to pretend that he'd given you enough to figure out who'd done it as you went along. This book had pacing issues that I fell are due to bad editing, if you find the first 20 pages choppy it doesn't get any better. All the characters are written to be likeable but I disliked them all at the end. The only character I miss is Ian, who was an asshole, because everyone else just annoyed me by the end. 

Wheelhouses: older main characters, whodunit, cosy murders,
unreliable narrators
.

Doghouses: choppy chapters!!!!! Please for the love of all that's good stop killing the momentum by randomly ending the chapter in the middle of a scene, the weird diet talk/fat shaming/writing about Chris overeating crap food which seems to be Osman's leading theory about people being fat being overly slovenly and lazy, Osman's pedantry about biscotto singular in the POV of the cockney boxer, Joyce's overly cutesy first person POV chapters that absolutely killed any momentum or immersionn and made me froth with rage.
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