Dig – DaneCobain.com

Title: Holes

Author: Louis Sachar

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 234

Rating 4/5

This started out super promising, and the idea of troubled kids being forced to dig holes every day reminded me of The Long Walk by Stephen King, writing under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman. The entire first half of the book was a solid 5/5 all of the way.

The problem for me was that the ending let it down, and I think it ended up focusing too heavily on the mysteries of the past when I wanted to see more of what the author had to say about society. There were some great observations here and it was certainly food for thought, and it almost rivals The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton when it comes to books about troubled youth. Almost, but not quite.

All in all, I’d still recommend reading this, but I do think that while it was good, it had the potential to be great but it let itself down. With that said, Sachar did an excellent job, and while this book isn’t perfect, it’s damn close. It’s just what I needed after reading a book that I enjoyed much less than I was expecting it to, and it made for a pretty good palate cleanser. Go ahead and check it out if you’re able to find a copy. Do it.

Click here to buy Holes.

Agatha Christie – Murder in Mesopotamia | Review

Title: Murder in Mesopotamia

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 352

Rating: 3*/5

Agatha Christie – Murder in Mesopotamia

I was a little disappointed by this because it’s a Hercule Poirot book and it was written when Christie was at the height of her power. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it particularly gripping, which is annoying because I picked this up specifically because I wanted something that I’d enjoy after not enjoying The Shadow of the Wind. But it didn’t work.

What I do like here is the setting. All of the action takes place on an archaeological dig, and Christie herself had a big interest in archaeology, in part because her second husband was an archaeologist. Her passion for that really shines through and so if you’re into archaeology then you’re going to enjoy this. It’s just that the case itself feels uninspired. I didn’t really care for either the characters or the mystery.

Another problem that I had is that the book is narrated in first person and I didn’t really get a sense of who the narrator actually was. It took me about 80% of the book to figure out that they were meant to be some sort of doctor, and it was just kind of weird to me to have a Poirot book that was narrated by a narrator who wasn’t Captain Hastings. It’s not necessarily a problem, but it did seem a bit weird. It was like eating a meal where the meal tastes good but the texture is off.

Agatha Christie

All in all then, it was fine. After all, it’s an Agatha Christie book, and Christie at her worst is better than most people at their best. The problem is that there just wasn’t much for me to recommend this one, and that made me kind of sad. It’s not what I’ve come to expect from Christie at all.

I’d still recommend reading this, purely because I think it’s worth reading all of her books and you’re going to have to read this one if you want to get to the end of her oeuvre. So yeah.