Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Hollow by Agatha Christie

6 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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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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norwegianforestreader's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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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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