Reviews with content warning for Car accident - How to Solve Your Own Murder

Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

11 reviews

clovetra's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced

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

3.0

what a sweet little story. usually with books i’m either in love with it or i absolutely despise it. and i am happy to report this was perfectly middle of the road for me. which is rare! in my mind average is still good.

i found the mc to be a bit bland. it felt as though she had no personality and was designed to be a reader surrogate, but that doesn’t really work considering annie’s role in this is connected through familial ties. i kind of feel as though she’s supposed to be a blank slate, but in the same vein she kind of can’t be due to her role in the story. i defo was rooting for her, and i liked that her prowess for mysteries was explained through her being a writer, but idk i didn’t really connect to her. like when weird shit was happening to her, i didn’t feel invested enough to be concerned for her.

the side characters felt like they had even less characterisation. i think that’s because there’s just so many moving parts in this story, and ill be real it took me longer than i’d care to admit to align frances’ diary entries to their modern-day versions. but god because there were so many characters i lost track of a character’s significance. for example, because in frances’ diary the girls kept swapping between so many boys, i kept forgetting who ford or billy or archie were. i love when a mystery book can surprise me because i usually have a good track record for figuring out culprits, but i honestly think the reason i couldn’t crack this isn’t because this book outsmarted me in terms of how things happened, but i literally was forgetting who did what and how that links to the crime(s). i’ll give the book a point for keeping me guessing, but even still when the entire mystery was explained to me, i was still a bit confused because there were just. so. many. characters. especially mfs with the same last name. i know it’s because it’s a small town but oh my god i couldn’t keep track of who was related to who and how and my god my brain couldn’t keep up.

i did have quite a lot of fun reading this though. it’s the perfect book to cuddle up with under a blanket, and for a murder mystery, is pretty lighthearted (in a good way!!!!). i don’t want to seem like a dick but this was generic in some ways, but honestly cliches are so common because they’re good. you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. and i honestly didn’t want to put this down because i wanted to see where it was going.

overall i’d say i had a swell time, but god you almost need to take notes reading this to keep track of who’s who in the past and the future as well as who’s related to someone from the past.

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styxx's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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mikathereviewer's review against another edition

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funny mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

"‘Don’t worry, Annie, I’m not going to murder you.’
‘I appreciate that, Saxon,’ I reply. ‘I’m not going to murder you either.’ And then we both smile, because this is such a strange thing to say ten minutes after meeting someone for the first time."

There is no way that this book actually had over 500 pages. I started it yesterday and already finished and no I wasn't addicted to it. But I was addicted to some quotes in this book.

+ Funny scenes and interesting plot (I mean, a woman getting more and more crazy about her fortune telling? Sign me up!)

+ Really nice and cool quotes (or maybe I'm biased since one is about chess)

+ Alice in Wonderland reference (one can never do anything wrong with this, I'm a huge fan)

+ Toxic relationships (I have a soft spot for drama and yes — I like to torture myself by reading sad stories)

+ The main character WAS NOT stupid! (Can you believe it?!!)

+ Relatable moments (‘I can’t face Mum’s basement again without backup. Last week when I was cleaning it out there were spiders. Huge ones.’

- Mostly flat characters (more murder mystery and plot than anything else)

- No explanation for things or stuff that was confusing. Example; We get told that Frances isn't the forgiving kind, but in her diary entries we see something different. And also the way another person confirmed it too by saying she is quite forgiving while others wouldn't in the same situation. What is she now??

- Boring ending (wasn't hard to find out who the murderer was and the ending was kinda meh)

- Too many repetitions (we get it who your prime suspect is and we don't need a re-telling of the diaries about one hundred times, just try to advance the plot!)

- Sometimes felt too slow (see above for reasoning)

- Even though the idea was good it felt like nothing special. Average the most. There just wasn't anything that made the book feel special. While reading I had the feeling (except the fortune stuff) that it wasn't anything new from most thriller and mystery books.

- Sometimes we get new info, just for it to be superficial and not go into depth than it could be. There were so many other things that were interesting too while our MC tried to find out who the murderer is but unfortunately they are left again as fast as they were discovered. Why didn't we get to see more of the alphabetical sorted files and the bad stuff each person did. And we never got an explanation for Sam Arlington. The MC just decided it's not important and that she doesn't need to see other files or in general explore deeper.

Only 2 stars as it didn't feel as exciting as I hoped for it to be and it's less than average for me as most things were superficial and we got flat characters which is quite dislike. The ending was predictable too which made me bored for the last 15% to 20% that were left.

If you don't have high expectations for thrillers or in general don't think much about who the murderer might be this might be fun to read. For me who seeks books that are standing out from the rest and really hates it when the murderer is some obvious person I couldn't quite enjoy it as much as I hoped to.

02. September 2024

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dreambornnicole's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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teetasse's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-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? Yes

4.0

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bessadams's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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agathajanemaud1908's review

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funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

I found the first few chapters a bit clunky, but then I got wrapped up in the mystery and finished this book in three days. A bit more tension in the climax and more details and background about the main character would have made this book even better. I also found some developments/theories of the mystery hard to follow.
Looks like this is book one of a series, so I’m looking forward to more mysteries involving Great Aunt Frances’ files! There’s a lot of potential for a great series involving the village of Castle Knoll.

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ms_elchert's review

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mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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purplepenning's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

3.5

Really wanted to love it, but my interest kept wandering, which made it difficult to keep a large cast of characters in two different timelines straight. Great premise, but maybe a tighter edit would've been more to my tastes. I was unexpectedly bored and annoyed by the 1960s bright young things timeline — teen drama often affects me that way. And the present-day story managed to be both packed with clues and yet lacking a sense of urgency to drive it. I did enjoy that it felt like a fair, classical mystery, though — I had half of it figured out before the reveal.

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eperetz's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

The characters and perspectives in this story were incredible. As an avid murder mystery reader, the plot kept me guessing and kept me engaged with even the smallest details. And if you wanted to turn this into a series of Annie and Crane solving the other crimes Frances uncovered over the years I would read every word.

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