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laurao's review
Apparently Agatha Christie was horribly judgemental and the biographer did not see the idle leisure of her time in the same light as the idle leisure of today. Not worth hearing more.
td3's review
3.0
Reading this was quite an undertaking! No one can accuse author Laura Thompson of not doing her research. While I learned much about Agatha Christie’s life that I did not know, I think the chapter about her disappearance was the most interesting. How ironic that even today, there is still somewhat of a mystery about the details of that disappearance.
The book covers Agatha’s life from childhood to death. Her contribution to plays, poems and other literature was prolific and Thompson made much use of it throughout the book. In fact, Thompson added so many excerpts from Christie’s writing that I sometimes felt like abandoning the biography to read Christie’s books.
I felt it was a bit presumptuous that Thompson so often assumed that Agatha viewed life as some of her characters or that Agatha was basing certain characters on her own life. Many times, I wished that Thompson had just presented the facts and not taken a detour into Christie’s writing that made assumptions about how she felt.
At times, the chronology was confusing and much of the information redundant. I felt the book could have been streamlined a bit to make for a smoother, more interesting read. I also would have liked to have seen more details about her life during World War II and in her later years.
Overall, the research was excellent and reading this has definitely motivated me to want to read more of Agatha Christie’s work.
Many thanks to NetGally and Pegasus Books for providing me with an advance copy.
The book covers Agatha’s life from childhood to death. Her contribution to plays, poems and other literature was prolific and Thompson made much use of it throughout the book. In fact, Thompson added so many excerpts from Christie’s writing that I sometimes felt like abandoning the biography to read Christie’s books.
I felt it was a bit presumptuous that Thompson so often assumed that Agatha viewed life as some of her characters or that Agatha was basing certain characters on her own life. Many times, I wished that Thompson had just presented the facts and not taken a detour into Christie’s writing that made assumptions about how she felt.
At times, the chronology was confusing and much of the information redundant. I felt the book could have been streamlined a bit to make for a smoother, more interesting read. I also would have liked to have seen more details about her life during World War II and in her later years.
Overall, the research was excellent and reading this has definitely motivated me to want to read more of Agatha Christie’s work.
Many thanks to NetGally and Pegasus Books for providing me with an advance copy.
annarella's review
4.0
A must read for any Agatha Christie's fan. It's a mix of biography and bibliography and it was an interesting, entertaining and engrossing read.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
eademolat's review
While I enjoyed reading about Agatha Christie’s life, I found it out how often the author used quotes from Christie’s mystery novels as evidence for Christie’s personal thoughts. The parts where the author used excerpts from Christie’s personal correspondence and notes seemed more reliable.
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