annoyingtiger888's Reviews (344)

Listen, when I say these books are my go-to for comfort, I mean it. Every time I feel down or I'm in a bad mood, the Murder, She Wrote series NEVER fails to lift up my spirits and make me smile. And that's just what I did during this book - I smiled and laughed. Donald Bain is an amazing author who really captures the spirit of Jessica Fletcher and her friends. 

Jessica is my hero, fictional or not, and she will always be Angela Lansbury to me, may she rest in peace. The friendship between her and Seth is so precious, it's my second favorite friendship throughout all the media I've watched, read and listened to. Most of my laughs came from their interactions.

Sam was also an amazing character, the funniest old guy I've ever read about haha I hope I get to be like him when I'm an old timer. He was the comedy relief and I loved picturing him hunting down an assassin while driving a bright pink car and wearing a damn cowboy hat!

Aside from loving this series to death, I was excited for this one because I live in Florida. It's not too often I read fiction taking place here and, honestly, I'm not too excited to do so because I don't like Florida. I found myself nodding along or saying, "That's right!" whenever a character would talk about the weather or when Jessica would mention how hot and humid it was. And the line about how it rains a lot but only for a short period? God, that's so true it hurts.

There's nothing worse than it being 90 degrees with 80% humidity only for it to rain for literally less than 5 minutes and then end up 10x hotter than it was before. It's terrible! Despite not liking my state, I felt proud to have Jessica visit and for this book to be set there. Honestly, it'd be cool if there was a MSW book for every state and many of the most populated countries. It would certainly make those challenges easier to complete haha

This was another amazing book that I highly recommend!

I don't know how I feel about this book honestly. For one, it felt way too long and slow for my tastes. I'm really enjoying the show, so I thought for sure I would enjoy the book.

This is one of those times where I think the show is much better than the book. The show just cuts out unnecessary fluff that made the book so long and boring. I was listening at 1.75x speed and it still dragged on.

Fitzjames is the only character that I actually liked. The rest I was either indifferent toward or simply hated. Looking at you Hickey, you bastard. The only time I felt any real emotion, though, was during chapter 58. I'm not sure if it's because the narrator did a fantastic job, but I almost cried during [redacted]'s letter.

Also, wasn't a fan of the sexual stuff. Like, this guy is running for his life, we don't need to know how his balls feel. And this other guy getting an erection from MUSIC? Come on, bro. Why do men do this in their books? I don't understand.

This book had no right to be as good as it was. This was the best Disney adventure I've heard in a loooong time! If only they were still producing stuff as good as this book, they might not be such a failing company.

I have seen the series three times and just recently discovered that there's a book. Of course, I HAD to listen to it. It was so good, I kept smiling as I remembered certain parts from the series. The narrator did a fantastic job keeping Wednesday's monotone throughout, while also managing regular voices for the other cast. This is such a fantastic story and I adore it so.

This book pissed me off. Well, that's not entirely accurate. It's not the book that pissed me off, it's the parents and grandparents. The fact that they let their small child go through all that hell infuriates me. Not only did they abandon him, but then they turned around and made him take the journey ALONE. 

They trusted their young son's life to STRANGERS. They thought they could just give money to people and that would ensure the safety of their son. That boy could have died a hundred times over. He could have been kidnapped, trafficked, murdered.

And I know the whole "well, he didn't die" and "it was for a better life" arguments. That doesn't matter. I'm very glad he made it safely and reunited with his family, but thinking about the trauma he went through and how many times he could have died, it makes me furious. Especially since it's still happening!

There's no better life if your kid ends up enslaved or buried in the dirt somewhere! So many people die making that journey, so many people go missing. It makes me so angry and I'm sorry, but those parents should be ashamed. 

However, Patricia and Chino should be proud of themselves. They took a young boy that wasn't even theirs and protected him as if he was. It broke my heart when they separated and when I learned that they lost contact. I hope they're doing okay and I hope they're able to reconnect one day. I truly believe he wouldn't have made it without them.

And imagine that, they weren't paid to protect him but did so. Meanwhile, all the people who had been paid didn't give two shits about what happened to him! 

I need to do something Zen after this. I knew it would be powerful but I didn't expect to get so angry. I truly hope the author is doing okay and has dealt with any trauma that may be lingering from this experience.

I saw the movie first before I knew there was a book and I loved it. Though it's not entirely faithful to the book, it's still a hilarious, great watch. As for the book, it's much darker than the movie, with far more detail and plot threads. I can't rightly say which is better because I adore both of them.

However, I do fear this book may have fallen prey to the American Translation Virus and might not be entirely faithful to the original book. Afterall, I'm pretty sure calling people "unc" is not a thing over in Japan. It's very American and very jarring when reading a book about Japanese people set in Japan. American translators seem to think they need to twist the original work to make it more American or we won't understand, but it cheapens the author's work and it's very... cringe, for lack of a better word.

This story was amazing, though. The thought of all these assassins being on one train, their jobs and lives intersecting like railway lines, is really amusing to me and lights a fire of inspiration within my brain. The story is just so good with such good characters. I imagine the original text is even better, without the jarring Americanization of it. It just makes me wish I could speak Japanese so I don't have to deal with this terrible practice.

I'm still salty that my favorite character dies in both the book and the movie, I won't say who because of spoilers. I can't get mad at the author, though, because despite this happening, he delivered an amazing story with equally amazing characters.

A very cute children's book.

The stories weren't bad. A bit too short for my liking, more like someone telling you what happened rather than you actually being there to see it for yourself. She came to the conclusions a bit too fast, too. And the narrators were all over the place.

One would speak fast. One would speak slow. One sounded like an ASMR thing. One repeated a bunch of lines. One would forget who was speaking and use her male voice for a female character. It was kind of jarring. I wish they would have chosen one narrator for this collection.

I didn't hate the experience, but I didn't love it either. It was more... meh for me.