A review by cherryvillegirl
The Hollow by Agatha Christie

challenging mysterious sad slow-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? It's complicated

2.5

the January Read Christie 2021 book.

I have three main issues with this book, which impacted my rating the most, all of which are common with Christie's works, especially those with Poirot.

1. The victim and how he is portrayed.
He's awful. Let's just make that clear to begin with. He's a narcissist and an unfaithful husband, yet he's extolled as a wonderful man and doctor, which, to be fair, is a common occurrence with victims of narcissists. They often can't or won't see the awful things that are happening to them and only see the abuser as some magical, wonderful person that must be upheld as all that is good in the world, so I guess his portrayal is accurate. With this said, it's really frustrating to me to see him continually being portrayed in a positive light. Normally I'm sad about the death in a mystery novel, but I was honestly excited when this guy died.


2. The ending.
a common trope in Poirot novels is him acting as judge and allowing murderers to get away without facing justice. In this book, he let the murderer poison themselves without stepping in and stopping them, just so they wouldn't have to face justice. As much as I pitied the person, I don't like the idea of justice not playing out and this really frustrated me.


3. The pacing. It was so slow. I felt like it could have been cut in half and it would have upped the suspense tenfold. It's especially frustrating when it's revealed that he knew for a while whodunit, leaving me wishing they just revealed it sooner instead of playing games. 

There were a few instances of twists that I enjoyed, but mostly I was bored and disappointed by this one. 
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