ellenareads's Reviews (564)

My first ever Agatha Christie book. I read this book kinda back to back with my sister because she wanted someone to talk to about it since she rarely read books. I was intrigued enough after her description to pick it up and it delivered on all fronts. I loved all of the character interactions and the way the plot was developing - giving you a very small piece of the puzzle in every chapter, but in a way that it makes you think of new possibilities and theories.
The only reason why this isn't a true 5 star - 

I found that the Tommy & Tuppence's relationship kinda hit out of no where and seemed a bit too rushed at the end.

 

I had a draft of this review from 5 days after I read the book and it basically just said how forgettable the book was and how I could not remember a thing about it.
It's now 4 months after reading it and I can't say anything much more than that. The book was predictable and very much like many other fantasy-romance books I read. If you are new to the genre maybe this one could be a lot more enjoyable for you.

This was a bingeable, quick read. I probably could have rated it higher if I was rating it mostly on enjoyment. But, I just couldn't look past all of it's flaws. Writing seemed to get worse as the book went on.  Characters had absolutely zero development. And not even to mention all of the plot holes in the police and legal investigations.
I also didn't find the ending believable considering all of the information we were given throughout the book for which the first-person narration was probably the biggest reason for.

Considering that this book had two of my least favorite romance tropes,

age-gap + student-teacher

, I didn't have high hopes for this one but it delivered. I'm a sucker for stories where a guy falls first which was handled so well in this one considering the tropes in it. 
Other characters were intriguing so I'll check out other books in this series.

I won't be rating this book. If I were to describe it in 1 word it would be challenging. This is my 3rd or 4th try reading it, and it took me about 4 months to actually read it this time. I'm glad I persevered through it and did it. I hope Janny Wurts gets recognized for her amazing work as a writer because I recognize how good this book is without even managing to grasp it to its fullest. I look forward to coming back to this series and trying it again.

(maybe I'll come back to this and actually try to write some sort of a review since I really did appreciate the reading experience this book gave me.)