A review by logger_j
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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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