Unapologetic Reviews

Agatha Christie ’s The Thirteen Problems is a compilation of thirteen short stories. This is the first time she introduces her beloved character, Miss Marple . The stories themselves weren’t made into movies, but elements from them were used. I listened to it as an audiobook. It’s very hard to talk about this book. The main plot device is that a group of people from many walks of life get together and tell each other mystery stories that actually happened. The narrator knows what the solution was, and the others try to guess. Predictably, Miss Marple gets it every time. However, this is only predictable for a modern audience — we know Miss Marple well by now. For the original readers, this came as a surprise. Although The Thirteen Problems was published as a collection in 1932, the short stories it contains were actually written and released earlier, starting in 1927. Christie later expanded Miss Marple into a full-length novel with The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930. The book version...

Jane Austen was born on 16 Dec 1775. 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of her birth. Join me in celebrating by reading and watching media connected to her. Follow this schedule: Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley Becoming Jane (2007) Sense and Sensibility Sense and Sensibility (1995) Sense and Sensibility (2008) Pride and Prejudice Pride and Prejudice (1940) Pride and Prejudice (1995) Mansfield Park Mansfield Park (1999) Mansfield Park (2007) Emma Emma (1996) Emma (2009) Emma (2020) Northanger Abbey Northanger Abbey (2007) Persuasion Persuasion (1995) Persuasion (2007) Modern Persuasion (2020) Persuasion (2022) Miss Austen Regrets (2007) Miss Austen by Gill Hornby Miss Austen (2025-)

I listened to Shari Franke 's The House of My Mother as an audiobook, narrated by the author herself. It was a mixed experience. In the early chapters—where she describes her mother, Ruby’s childhood and their family’s early years—her reading felt distant, almost detached. Since Shari wasn’t part of that story, it came across as a recitation rather than storytelling. However, once the focus shifted to her own experiences, her narration became more engaging. Shari is careful not to tell her siblings' stories beyond what directly overlaps with her own, which is intentional and respectful. The only sibling she delves into is her brother Chad, and honestly, I felt bad for him at times. She recounts life before the cameras, the YouTube years, and what happened after their family’s channel declined—suddenly and dramatically, about halfway through the book. At that point, I thought, OK, so what’s the rest of the book going to be about? I couldn’t help but compare it to two other memo...