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A review by archaicrobin
The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict
adventurous
funny
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
1.0
A festive Christmas game turned murder mystery with actual anagrams hidden in each chapter sounded like a blast. It was not. At first this seemed to be going somewhere, the characters were cliche and dull, but the plot and the extra element of clues for the reader kept me going. Unfortunately, the pacing in this book is horrendous and it didn’t keep me going for very long. You can only drag this game out so far with such cardboard characters. The whole novel gives Lifetime Movie, and not in a good way.
This book goes so LONG before the first murder occurs and even LONGER after that. The deaths were so poorly paced and absolutely meaningless because all of the characters sucked due to their complete lack of originality and depth. I wanted characters to die, I wanted no one to take this stupid house. A character would die and I would have to go to the family tree in the front of the book to remind myself why I should even care and who they were, which did not make this an engaging mystery for me.
Along with horrible pacing, and boring, borderline infuriating , characters is the books complete failure to write a cohesive, intriguing, and gripping mystery. This book is so long because I swear there are chapters that are only 3-4 pages long and written solely for the purpose including one of her stupid anagrams. These long drawn out chapters to reach anagram goals or make the 12 days of Christmas relevant, really dragged the plot to the point where I’d read about 50 pages and NOTHING plot driven would happen. I would get another paragraph on the food, or Sara being a bitch, or Lily again being the entire source of her own problems but never fucking doing anything about it. I think if you took out the anagrams, 12 days gimmick, holiday food, and Lily’s annoyingly repetitive self involved narratives, this book would barely be a novella.
So a murder mystery with terrible pacing, a poorly executed plot, and the worst characterizations I’ve experienced so far makes this a 1/5, 1/10. I would say read anything else. I like mysteries, ive read Agatha Christie, I know good mysteries and this is very much NOT it.
This book goes so LONG before the first murder occurs and even LONGER after that. The deaths were so poorly paced and absolutely meaningless because all of the characters sucked due to their complete lack of originality and depth. I wanted characters to die, I wanted no one to take this stupid house. A character would die and I would have to go to the family tree in the front of the book to remind myself why I should even care and who they were, which did not make this an engaging mystery for me.
Along with horrible pacing, and boring, borderline infuriating , characters is the books complete failure to write a cohesive, intriguing, and gripping mystery. This book is so long because I swear there are chapters that are only 3-4 pages long and written solely for the purpose including one of her stupid anagrams. These long drawn out chapters to reach anagram goals or make the 12 days of Christmas relevant, really dragged the plot to the point where I’d read about 50 pages and NOTHING plot driven would happen. I would get another paragraph on the food, or Sara being a bitch, or Lily again being the entire source of her own problems but never fucking doing anything about it. I think if you took out the anagrams, 12 days gimmick, holiday food, and Lily’s annoyingly repetitive self involved narratives, this book would barely be a novella.
So a murder mystery with terrible pacing, a poorly executed plot, and the worst characterizations I’ve experienced so far makes this a 1/5, 1/10. I would say read anything else. I like mysteries, ive read Agatha Christie, I know good mysteries and this is very much NOT it.