Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Assassinio sull'Orient Express

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Assassinio sull'Orient Express by Agatha Christie

21 reviews

madamenovelist's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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logger_j's review against another edition

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lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

overall I thought this book was ok, I read it in one day which is really strange, granted I wasn't feeling well so I didn't have anything else to do, but considering this book is a classic and I literally flew through it is incredible.

I thought that the writing was actually really good and liked the pacing a lot, considering the book took place over like 3 days top, but it was still faced paced enough for me to not get bored I thought that was really well done. i also just overall enjoyed the plot of the book and though I did find our main detective to be a little arrogant and cocky, I did enjoy the narration and I do think I will pick up another book from the Hercule Poirot series at some point.

I did have a few problems with this book though. The first being that there were just way to many characters for me. I mean there were

12 Killers!! (11 maybe I don't even know really

There were so many characters that I could only tell you who a handful of them were, including our main characters Poirot, the doctor and the friend/ train director. But everyone else I could not tell you their names, nationalities, what evidence we got from who, how they were connected to anything in the story, the ending or not. It was really all just a blur. I think this also had to do with the fact that I binge read it, and maybe didn't have time to process it, and also the fact that the names were just challenging names to say/remember, and I found myself just skimming over the actual names.

My last and biggest problem with the book was the ending. basically in the ending

The man who is murdered is a horrible guy who kidnapped, and killed this child back in America, and it resulted in the family of said child to all die as well. And because of this every single passenger on the train that is suspects in this case, lies about being involved in that old case, and then in the end they all worked together to plot and kill this guy. But the doctor and the train director decide to say it was someone else who got away because they "did the right thing?" by killing this guy they basically righted his wrong, which is a whole thing itself.

Not only did that ending not sit right with me but the way that we got to the ending was just rushed and sketchy to me. I mean I was ok with all the stuff that we were learning and then all of the sudden I felt like Poirot was just pulling guesses out of the air and they all ended up being right cause he's some sort of genius detective, but in reality its because they needed an ending and didn't know how to get us there without making it way to obvious.

All in all I liked the writing and the plot, but I didn't feel connected with the characters and I HATED the ending. 3.75 stars.

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jfield351's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This book was really good! I read it within a few hours on the 18th of February, as part of the dymocks challenge of ‘book with a mystery’. Having watched the movie I already knew the ending but the suspense and intrigue was still there nonetheless. Sometimes i did get the characters confused because there were so many. I was also confused because a lot of French was used and i don’t understand French. It was interesting, well-written and so gripping from the get-go, I just wished I hadn’t seen the movie because then maybe i’d have been even more intrigued and rated it higher. Wow!

The one twist I did not remember, or perhaps was left out of the movie, was that Poirot decided to pretend like someone else did the crime because he realised that justice had been served

. I also don't know how to feel about Poirot's deduction abilities, at times i felt like he was guessing too easily but at other times I marvelled at how smart he was.

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caribbeangirlreading's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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thevieira's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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genny's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

My second Agatha Christie, and my first Hercule Poirot! I adored Dan Stevens as the narrator. Christie's writing can come across as dry since the focus is on the interrogations and Poirot's ever-so-smug discussions with Bouc and the doctor (there's not as much build-up of the setting/atmosphere); listening to the audio really elevates the experience for me. The accents were so good! As for the mystery itself, I was able to guess the twist but it didn't detract from my enjoyment (I liked it much better than the twist in And Then There Were None). While I understand that Bouc acts like a stand-in for the readers' thoughts, I found it a little ridiculous that he was jumping to conclusions all the time in order to make Poirot look smarter. 😅 It'd be fun to see Poirot brainstorm with someone "on his level", so to speak. I wonder if there are any stories where that happens.

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iamsammie27's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

My husband was SO EXCITED that I didn't already know the twist to this murder mystery, because apparently knowing the twist makes it not very enjoyable. This is his favorite Agatha Christie book, and he really really wanted me to expierience it too.

And it was quite an enjoyable read. I did not guess the solution to the mystery at all, which is always a positive thing in my book, and Agatha Christie is indeed fantastic at unexpected twists. The answer of who was the murderer did seem to come out of nowhere, but I did listen to this as an audiobook at work. If I'd been reading this and putting my whole attention into it, I might have been able to follow Hercule Poirot's thought process a little better.

I can't help but compare this to And Then There Were None, the other book I've read by the same author. Both were short books that can be read quickly, relatively uncomplicated aside from one massive twist revealing who's responsible, managed a large cast of characters who all managed to be distinct, and featured said characters isolated away from anyone who could help or put confounding variables into the murderers' carefully crafted plot. The tension is much lower in Murder on the Orient Express since it doesn't seem likely that the killer intends to kill anyone else, and obviously the twist is different, but otherwise the two books are strikingly similar.

Personally, I think Murder on the Orient Express would be good for at least two reads if one was so inclined. The first to experience the twist and how wrong your guess about the murderer's identity was (unless you already know the twist, I promise you're wrong), the second to know the twist and see how all the clues are designed to lead everyone astray but do point to the right answer after all. Beyond that, I don't know. Agatha Christie's mysteries do not seem to be designed for re-readability (although I haven't read many mysteries, so that may be typical of the genre). Regardless, I highly enjoyed this adventure, and Agatha Christie is an absolute master at twists.

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sassylk's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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tilo's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

This was my very first crime story that I finished. On the first evening, I read 70 pages in one sitting which is not usual for me. It was intriguing, mysterious and entertaining all the way through. Only thing that bothered me a little were the very present gender stereotypes of that time (also in the way it was narrated) but ultimately, it did not keep me from enjoying the mystery.

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