classic

Book Review: The Mystery of the Blue Train

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The Mystery of the Blue Train
Hercule Poirot #6
 by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

I know I haven’t been the biggest fan of this series so far, but this one felt even messier and a bit more convoluted to me. Lots of red herrings and potential suspects are trotted out, there are conversations that amount to nothing, and in the end, the solution is a lot simpler than all of that set-up made it seem like it would be. I actually found the story interesting when the different characters are being introduced and I’m trying to guess who is going to be found dead and who would be the culprit. But the second half or so seemed to slow way down, and that’s where the filler came in. 

What’s funny to me is that while I was listening to this audiobook (narrated very well by Hugh Fraser), I decided that here is where I would end my attempts to go through this series. But afterward, I decided to keep going for now. I think I’m still hoping something will suddenly click and I’ll see what everyone else sees in these books. We’ll see.

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Book Review: The Secret of Shadow Ranch

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The Secret of Shadow Ranch
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #5
by Carolyn Keene
read by Laura Linney

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic mystery

This book was the first in the series to bring up major ND video game memories for me. The game takes different turns, but the legend of the outlaw whose phantom horse is showing up and wreaking havoc are in the game. There’s a sub-plot in the book regarding a kidnapped man that I didn’t see a reason for—supposedly his kidnappers let him drawing pictures and then sold them in town. It ended up being a way to help Nancy and her friends begin to find answers to the main mystery, but it seemed pretty sloppy to me.

This series has already showcased Nancy as great at everything she does, but this book takes it a step further, when Nancy and her friends win every activity during a town festival. I suppose that during this time period, it seemed best to show the good guys as the best at everything, but it would certainly have been more realistic and taught kids more about real life if Nancy was 2nd-best now and then.

For a second time, a bloated plot was my biggest issue with the book. Linney still does a great job bringing Nancy to life, but I hope to enjoy the next one more.

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Book Review: Kristy’s Great Idea

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Kristy’s Great Idea
The Baby-Sitters Club #1
by Ann M. Martin

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

For complete transparency, I’ll say up front that I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen. And at the time, my name was the same as the founder of the BSC (with the first name spelled slightly different). Nostalgia will hugely affect my reviews for this series, and I have no plans to try to be objective.

I enjoyed diving into the first book in the series and witnessing the birth of the Baby-Sitters Club anew. I struggle to actually envision these pre-teens as 12-year-olds though. My daughter is 14, and I can’t imagine her talking and acting like these characters do 2 years ago. Maybe that’s a difference in time periods, or maybe it was Martin’s attempt to make the plot plausible. On the other hand, Kristy acts very immature with her mom and mom’s boyfriend/fiancé, while most of the maturity is related to the girls’ babysitting abilities and experience, a nuance that might actually make sense after all. I look forward to the evolution of the club, which starts in this book and I know will continue in future books as the girls add more protocols and members.

I remember doing a small-scale version of this with my friend (we lived in the country, so it definitely didn’t work quite as well, but I did get one summer-long job out of it). I don’t remember if it was inspired by the series, though I can’t imagine it wouldn’t have influenced us to some degree, but I can say that I was not nearly as professional as these girls. I checked out the e-book on a whim while waiting until I had time to pick up a book I had on hold at the library, and I was sad that the e-book doesn’t have the distinct handwriting of the club members. I’ll definitely get physical copies as much as possible as I continue through the series. I don’t know how far I’ll get before stopping—maybe once I am past the books that I would have read due to outgrowing the books, or maybe further. Whether or not this book will translate well to kids and pre-teens now, I couldn’t say. My guess is no, but maybe if your kids are interested in reading about a somewhat simpler time (it’s so weird to say that about my own childhood period, but it really is true—and I have now realized that this book came out 40 years ago, and now I feel really old) they’ll enjoy this book.

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Book Review: The Big Four

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The Big Four
Hercule Poirot #5
 by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

In some ways, it seems like this story would have been better suited to a different protagonist. The grand crime syndicate spanning continents is bigger than anything I’ve seen so far in Poirot books. That being said, though I can see that this isn’t a favorite of many other readers, I found myself intrigued by the connections throughout the book. It still felt like it went on a little long, with some minor crimes being thrown in that I don’t think were strictly necessary. The climax and sections leading up to it are, again, pretty grand and dramatic for this series, but since I’m not a Poirot purist, I enjoyed it. Hugh Fraser continues to be a great narrator, so I hope to be able to continue to listen to him going forward.

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Book Review: The Mystery at Lilac Inn

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The Mystery at Lilac Inn
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #4
by Carolyn Keene
read by Laura Linney

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic mystery

This installment in the series was a bit disjointed and bloated. I feel like too many sub-plots were thrown in, or maybe they were trails meant to throw us off the mystery. Not terrible, but I definitely wasn’t as engaged as I was while listening to the previous books.  Laura Linney still does a great job bringing Nancy to life, but I hope to enjoy the next one more.

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Book Review: Poirot Investigates

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Poirot Investigates
Hercule Poirot #3
 by Agatha Christie
read by David Suchet

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

Reading this collection of short stories after reading 3 full-length Poirot books, I really appreciated the succinctness of the mysteries here. As far as I can tell, the short stories are very uncommon in this series, though, so it’ll be back to the longer plots that I can’t help but feel run on too long after this. Though some of the stories in this collection were more enjoyable than others, overall I felt much more engaged throughout than I have so far in my readings of Poirot. Poor Hastings, though…if I were in his place, I’m sure I’d make all the same “stupid” mistakes that Poirot berates him for. If only Poirot were a bit more understanding of those who aren’t the genius he is.

I know that David Suchet, who narrated this version of the audiobook, famously portrayed Poirot in TV adaptations, though I have not seen any version of Poirot on any size screen. I will say, though, that for a good portion of these stories, his French accent for Poirot was almost too difficult to understand. Then it suddenly seemed to lighten partway through. Outside of that, though, I enjoyed listening to this audiobook.

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Book Review: The Bungalow Mystery

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The Bungalow Mystery
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #3
by Carolyn Keene
read by Laura Linney

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic mystery

I’m finding it a little difficult to write a different review for each of these books, so I’ll just say a few things. I appreciate the excitement at the beginning, with Nancy and a friend stuck out on the water during a thunderstorm and that leading them to meet a young girl who ends up needing Nancy’s help. Though her predicament was pretty obvious to me from the start, I’m certain that those of the age group that these books are meant for would not have figured it out as easily. Overall, I’m enjoying the series and this trip back to a different time (though whether that time is the 30s or the 50s, I don’t know…apparently the original books were updated at some point, and I don’t know for sure which version these audiobooks are based on.) Laura Linney again does a great job bringing Nancy to life, making the audiobook a great option for this series.

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Book Review: Cranford

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Cranford
by Elizabeth Gaskell
read by Nadia May

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Classic Victorian literature

Having greatly enjoyed Wives and Daughters and North and South by the same author, and seeing this billed in some places as Gaskell’s best-loved work, I went into this expecting something very different. Maybe this is just another example of classic writing that I simply don’t get, but I spent at least half of the time listening to this wondering what I was missing. It wasn’t completely uninteresting, but there isn’t much of a plot—at least not one that is discernible until far into the book. Even then, it’s thin.

On the other hand, some of the vignettes are amusing or interesting, and when a somewhat more involved plot emerged near the end, I was invested enough to really like it. I just think that there weren’t as many solid, distinct characters around which this book was written. I realized partway through that I probably should have approached this book the same way I did the other two (though it was not intentional with those two). I watched the BBC mini-series for both of them before I ever read the books, and maybe that allowed me to stay more interested as the plot meandered its way to the end (especially in Wives and Daughters). My husband bought me the mini-series of Cranford recently, so I’ll watch that soon, and who knows, maybe it will inspire me to listen to the audiobook again in the future with a different mindset going in.

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Book Review: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Hercule Poirot #4
 by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

All my life, I’ve heard of Agatha Christie and her most famous character, Hercule Poirot. As a reader of mystery novels all the way back to my school days, I always thought I was missing out on something by not reading any Christie, yet for whatever reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do so. Now that I have read 3 of her novels, and now one of the most loved of the Poirot stories, I find they’re a bit of a letdown. It seems to be a common theme for me when I read highly acclaimed classics, but it often seems like I’m missing what others are seeing. With each of these books, I realize more and more that there’s just way more story than I feel is necessary. I tend to zone out while I’m listening and then realize I don’t really know what’s going on. That’s my own fault, I know, but I think it’s mostly due to me not connecting well with the prose.

I do understand why this book is one of the most acclaimed Poirot story, and I’m not going to pretend I figured out the ending before we got there, but it was just a little too late to make the rest of the story more interesting. I’m also not sure how I feel about the blatant trickery Christie used throughout this book (blatant after the fact, not during). I do still think that Hugh Fraser does a great job narrating. I’m not giving up on the series yet, but I have a feeling it won’t be long.

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Book Review: The Hidden Staircase

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The Hidden Staircase
Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #2
by Carolyn Keene
read by Laura Linney

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic mystery

Continuing on with listening to these old books that I somehow didn’t pay attention to when I was younger, one of the things I enjoyed about this book was the setting and the feeling of being transported back in time. Communication was slow, houses were thought of as haunted, and teenage girls were tasked with solving mysteries. Okay, that last one might not have been true-to-life even in the 30s, but somehow it just feels plausible in these books. And though there are some fairly obvious coincidences in this book, I’m sure that the kids in the age group it was meant for wouldn’t pick up on them as easily and would enjoy the excitement of the mystery. Laura Linney again does well bringing Nancy to life, making the audiobook a great option for this series.

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