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Agatha Christie – The Seven Dials Mystery | Review

Title: The Seven Dials Mystery

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 192

Rating: 4/5

I was taken by surprise with this one, and that’s a good thing. I’ve been getting through the last few unread Agatha Christie books on my pile and so I have a sort of automatic tendency to assume that I’ve left the worst ones until last. That was definitely not true in this case.

Weirdly, for the first time in my life, I found myself relating to the murder victim in Agatha Christie book, mainly because he was something of a spoiled young man who had a habit of sleeping in late. The core plot basically revolves around a plot that some of his friends hatch to plant a bunch of “alarum” clocks beneath his bed to wake him up nice and early.

For me, this is in the top 20% Christie books, and that’s saying something. There’s a lot of good characterisation here, a fun little mystery for you to enjoy and just overall a lot of that classic Christie goodness. You can tell she was in her prime.

Learn more about The Seven Dials Mystery.

Gillian Flynn – Sharp Objects | Review

Title: Sharp Objects

Author: Gillian Flynn

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 328

Rating: 3.5*/5

Gillian Flynn – Sharp Objects

This is Gillian Flynn’s debut novel, but it’s the third of her books that I’ve picked it up and I’d probably put it somewhere towards the middle. It felt like a generic thriller, but it did also have its fair share of characterisation and I actually got vibes of Stephen King when I was reading it. It also got really, really dark, and there are trigger warnings here for everything from child abuse and the murder of kids to self-harm and addiction.

The main character here isn’t particularly likeable either, but then she’s had a rough upbringing and so you can’t really blame her for it. She also makes some poor decisions throughout the book that kind of annoyed me, but I didn’t find it to be too much of a problem. It wasn’t like Gone Girl where I just hated all of the characters and was disappointed that nothing bad happened to them. Here, I wasn’t too bothered about who did what and why and just let the story wash over me, and I think that’s the best way to approach it.

Next up for me will be Dark Places, but only because it’s the only Gillian Flynn book that I haven’t read. She seems like the kind of author who I’ll keep on reading just to see what she’s coming up with. Objectively speaking, I think she’s a pretty good writer. It’s just that her stories don’t always connect with me. I also think that she has a habit of using twist after twist, to the point at which you kind of know that another one is always coming. I somehow predicted the twist and then the other twist that came after that, but I only guessed there’d be a second because there always is with Flynn.

Still, it was a’ight. I’m glad I ticked it off.