Tag: Differences

Agatha Christie – The Secret Adversary | Review

August 3, 2020
Authors A-E (By Surname)Fiction

Title: The Secret Adversary

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 224

Rating: 3.75/5

This book was a lot of fun for me because it’s the first of Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence books and so it was nice to go back to the very start when they first met each other. True, I don’t think that Christie’s necessarily at her best when she’s writing these sorts of political thrillers, but I also think that she’s pretty far ahead of her time with it too.

I also liked some of the stuff that Christie wrote here about the differences between the genders, and indeed she showed it both through the narration and through the dialogue that some of the characters had. For example, Tommy tells Tuppence that he’ll protect her, and she turns around and tells him that she’ll protect him too. Pretty interesting for 1922, which is when this was first published.

All in all then, I can see why it might not be your cup of tea if you’re a casual Christie fan, but if you’ve already read a little Marple and Poirot then this is a decent place to turn for more. Personally, I like Tommy and Tuppence, and while I know that a lot of others don’t, I’m still happy enough to be reading them.

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Charles Dickens – Hard Times | Review

June 8, 2020
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Title: Hard Times

Author: Charles Dickens

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 248

Rating: 3.5/5

I’ve had this book for a while now but I’d been putting it off because it has tiny print and because it’s Dickens, and so I knew it wasn’t exactly going to be easy going. The good news is that once I got into it, I got pretty absorbed in the story line and I had to keep on reading to see what happened next. The characters were just a nice little added bonus.

I think this book quite often gets overshadowed by Dickens’ other work, but what I learned from this is that he was just a pretty badass writer in general. His work still holds up today, and so too do the issues that he wrote about. Dickens is great at covering class differences, and while the specific classes might have changed, the general idea has not.

Still, I have to admit that the main feeling that I’ve been left with after completing this is a sense of relief. It’s been on my TBR for literally years and I’ve been meaning to get to it, but I was putting it off. I think I left it for just the right amount of time, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend racing out to get yourself a copy immediately.

The good news is that it’s out of copyright and so you can read it for free all over the place. Enjoy.

Learn more about Hard Times.