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

This is my first Agatha Christie book and will definitely not be my last because it was such a fun quick read that really captured my interest! Was it the best and most surprising thriller/mystery I've ever read? Definitely not. But I did find it fun and engaging.

It is lacking in a lot of areas in my opinion so I wish some areas had been better expanded on to make the novel a bit longer. The conclusion was not the most probable but it was an interesting twist that I did not see coming. I definitely respect this as a classic of the genre and can see why it's well loved and respected. I also think it's interesting to see how far the genre has developed since this was written.

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bethcarmo21's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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browncr3's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense 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? No

4.0

A great murder mystery with a great twist! I truly enjoyed the writing. I thought it would seem outdated because of when it was written, but it really was written for any time period. I couldn't give it a 5, because I figured it out before it was revealed. I listened this on audio and read it physically, and I really enjoyed reading both at the same time. The audiobook is great, it's just the heavy accents the narrator was doing made it hard to follow along at times because I didn't understand him, which is why it's so much better when you have he book to follow along. Great read, I'll be reading more of her books!

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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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amandabcook's review against another edition

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mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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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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seb_pitch's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

4.5

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0martina0's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No

1.0

I'm giving this book 1 star to hopefully remind myself in the future not to read any more Agatha Christie books. It was very frustrating to read. I didn't know what was going on half the time, in part because of the different setting (I guess I can imagine a hatbox, but what "You skewered through the hat with a hatpin on to this hump of wire netting" means is just beyond me, and this kept happening over and over and it was not fun trying to keep up); in part because they often spoke French, untranslated. Also disliked Poirot with his pretentious "ohh I know the solution but I'm not going to tell you because you're all just so dumb and not as clever as me!!". Also disliked/didn't understand nationalities being used instead of personality descriptions. Like, oh he's English, okay, that explains everything, thanks!!
Made myself finish it to count towards this year's challenge because I was far too deep into the book before realizing it wasn't going to get better and didn't want to waste the pages I'd already read.
The ending double surprised me but I felt like it wasn't at all worth the effort.
Also seemed like there was no way Poirot actually figured it all out instead of just somehow insanely guessing the impossible, but maybe that's just because I couldn't follow his reasoning due to the different time period, idk.
I couldn't stop comparing it to Sherlock Holmes stories which I love dearly and might go read now just to calm myself down now.

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