Character – DaneCobain.com

Title: Towards Zero

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 192

Rating: 3.25/5

This book is one of Christie’s Inspector Battle books, and I’ve always found them to be a little weaker than the Marple and Poirot books, as well as just her general standalones. Unfortunately, Battle just isn’t a particularly gripping character, and so when he’s front and centre in one of Christie’s books, it’s a bit of a struggle.

I think part of the problem here was that the mystery itself also wasn’t particularly interesting, and so that left me just reading for the sake of reading even though the story and the characters were of only passing interest. I mean, it’s still alright, just not great.

Still, I should caveat this with what I always say about Agatha Christie, which is that even a bad Agatha Christie book is better than a good book by most other authors. It’s just a shame that I left this one until towards the end, because I was kind of hoping to go out on a high. And now I only have two more of her books left.

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Robert Louis Stevenson – Kidnapped | Review

Title: Kidnapped

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 232

Rating: 3.25/5

I’ve had this for a while but had been putting it off because I didn’t much like Treasure Island. My issue there was that I thought the story line was good but that the writing let it down, which is why I tend to enjoy adaptations of it more than the source material.

Here, I quite liked the character of David Balfour and I found the story a little more balanced with better pacing, and I also thought that Stevenson’s writing was a little more approachable. The downside is that there aren’t any pirates, but I can live with that.

True, I still don’t think that Stevenson is the writer for me, but I did think that was perhaps more accessible. I’m sure there are some pretty cool adaptations of it too, although I can’t say I’ve ever seen any. Now that I know the story, though, I can go ahead and check some of them out, I guess.

So would I recommend it? Well that kind of depends as it’s a complicated question with no easy answer. It’s not a bad shout if you’re into classics and you’re looking for something that’s a little more of an adventure. If you’re more of a general reader then perhaps you’re better off just skipping it. Huh.

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