Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - The Hollow

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The Hollow by Agatha Christie

10 reviews

bessadams's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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akira_outofthegravity's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Honestly a solid 4 stars.

I knew who the killer was the minute a certain chapter was read, but I was still shocked by the ending. It seems an outlier in Christie’s books in that it ends not with Poirot or a confession. It’s an interesting ending with an interesting character I would like to see more of.

I’m happy that Midge and Edward got their happy ending. And I’m not sorry about the murder bc it was justified imo.

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3frenchtoast's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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odrib's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

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poirot's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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exlibrissum's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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mandkips's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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mariekejee's review against another edition

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mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

In many ways, this is a book just like many of the other Agatha Christie's I've read. The murder occurs, the misdirections keep coming your way, and in the end you have no idea who actually murdered whom so you patiently wait for M. Poirot to tell you the who, why and how of it all. This story changes things up a bit, however: not only do we spend a significant portion of the book with the characters before anyone gets killed, but the conclusion of it all isn't Hercule Poirot standing in front of the suspects and kicking off his spiel, like so many of Christie's other stories. It is a bit of a sad ending, but to keep this a spoiler-free review, that's all I'll say.

I enjoyed getting to know our characters before the mystery kicked in, and it works quite well because these odd characters need some introduction to be able to understand their reasoning as the reader. My only complaint is that as a whole, this book feels quite slow, while I prefer somewhat quicker paced stories when reading mystery novels. I didn't feel much, if any, tension during this book, but rather I felt for the characters and their relationships. I've never really come out of a Christie novel rooting for the relationship of two fictional people, but that definitely happened here.

Overall, I would recommend this novel if you don't mind a bit more character based, slower paced mystery.

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cherryvillegirl's review against another edition

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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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sheryl_reads's review against another edition

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mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was my first Agatha Christie novel - I went in expecting a detective mystery and I wasn’t disappointed!

The Hollow is fairly short, so it’s a good place to start I think. It’s a Hercule Poirot story, but he doesn’t appear til quite far in! It’s a murder mystery and, of course, Poirot gets to the bottom of it!

The end was definitely unexpected, it kept me guessing the whole way through, and the pacing and writing were very good.

As I expected, the story was a little ‘jolly hockey sticks’ - full of upper class British people who don’t have jobs, and who inherit estates and don’t know what to do with themselves. However, unlike some older stories like that, the characters weren’t boring and I didn’t find myself getting frustrated by them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one and I’ll be reading more Christie over the year. I give it 3 ⭐️ - a very enjoyable read.

I will put a caveat on this however. There is language and descriptions within the book that are offensive. The books are older and I’ve no doubt it’s in keeping with other books of the period, but it does warrant mentioning it. I found it very jarring and it’s definitely something to be aware of before reading.

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