Unapologetic Reviews

I read Crooked House (1949) as part of my 2025 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge , and I listened to it as an audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser . That, oddly enough, turned out to be part of the problem for me. Fraser usually narrates Poirot novels, and since this is not a Poirot book, I kept mentally casting the narrator as Hastings . The story is told in the first person by Charles Hayward , and even knowing his name, the narration still felt oddly anonymous at times. Because Fraser’s voice is so closely tied to the Poirot series in my mind, it created a strange overlap that affected how I experienced the book. What surprised me was how familiar the story felt. I was convinced I remembered it as a Poirot case, even though it isn’t one. I’ve never seen the Crooked House film adaptation, so I’m still not entirely sure why certain scenes felt so vivid to me. It may be because the structure of the story would easily allow Poirot to be inserted into it, and perhaps that’s how my memory...

I finally started The Wheel of Time after the TV adaptation was cancelled. I had always meant to read it, in a vague someday sort of way, but fourteen enormous books is an intimidating commitment. Still, I was in the mood for high fantasy, and I was genuinely annoyed about the show. I liked it. I did not need it to be faithful in every detail; I am perfectly fine with adaptations changing things. Books and television work differently, especially when the source material is this sprawling. I tend to think of adaptations as alternate versions of the same story. The visuals were beautiful, the atmosphere worked, and yes, I am going to miss it. Screw Amazon . I listened to The Eye of the World as an audiobook, which turned out to be a serious undertaking. It runs over thirty hours, and it took me more than a month to finish. This is not a fast book. The plot is enormous, but the pace is glacial. Things happen, then the characters walk. Then they walk some more. Something interrupts them....

If you haven’t read the original The Hunger Games trilogy, stop here and go read it. You should read it anyway, but you absolutely should not start with this book. There are spoilers in this review for the original trilogy. Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins begins with a burden of knowledge. We already know how this ends. Haymitch Abernathy is reaped. He wins. Everyone he loves is killed in retaliation. The Games continue unchanged, and for the next twenty-five years he mentors children he knows will die, until Katniss and Peeta arrive. That is not a spoiler. That is the emotional framework you walk in with. So the question is not what happens, but why. Why Haymitch? Why this particular victory warranted such cruelty. What did he do that terrified the Capitol enough to break him so thoroughly, yet still fail to stop what was coming. This book is about prevailing when the odds are not merely against you, but mathematically impossible. It is about failing and still trying ...

I read Cards on the Table (1936) as part of my 2025 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. The premise is wonderfully bold. Four detectives and four suspected murderers are invited to a dinner party by the eccentric Mr Shaitana . By the end of the night, the host is dead, and the real game begins. Christie herself once said this was one of her favourites, and it is easy to see why. The setup is unusual, even daring, because the mystery relies far less on physical clues and far more on psychology. Poirot is here, but he is not working alone. He is joined by Superintendent Battle , Colonel Race , and the sharp-witted Ariadne Oliver . Each approaches the suspects differently, and Christie uses those differences to explore four distinct ways of thinking about guilt. The suspects themselves are a study in possibility. Each has a dark shadow in their past, and each is capable of murder. At times, it truly feels as though it could have been anyone. That may be why I never remember the solution....

I finally finished my ARC copy of A Claiming of Souls by R. A. Sandpiper . This is the final part of her Amefyre trilogy, and it was a satisfying conclusion to a great series. (Also, just FYI—there’s a companion novella !) The ending was genuinely unpredictable. I usually have a good sense of where stories are going, but this one kept me guessing—so kudos to the author. I really enjoyed the story in this final book. A lot was happening, and there was even a little callback to the novella, which I appreciated. There were some surprising moments throughout. Suri ’s new powers were used really well—I liked that they didn’t make her feel overpowered or invincible. She still had real moral dilemmas to face and discovered a lot about herself. Her arc was deeply satisfying; she truly developed as a character while still staying true to who she was at her core. Kol , the other main character, wasn’t as prominent in this instalment. He was present, but he didn’t stand out as much this time. An...

I read The Seven Dials Mystery (1929) for my 2025 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge . At first, I confused it with The Clocks . Both involve clocks and a murder, but The Clocks is a Poirot story and this one isn’t. That initial confusion set the tone for me, as I went in expecting one thing and found myself in quite another. This is Christie in her thriller phase . In the late 1920s, she liked to play with secret societies, masked meetings, and the idea that danger lurks just beyond the country-house gates. The novel also reuses the setting from The Secret of Chimneys and brings back a few characters, though I wasn’t familiar with them before. It gave me the feeling of being introduced to a group of old friends everyone else already knows. The heroine here is “Bundle” Brent, young, sharp, and impulsive. When one of her friends turns up dead, she charges headlong into the mystery. What begins as the familiar comfort of a body in a grand house shifts into something stranger. There ar...

Pride and Prejudice is the second novel published by Jane Austen , and it is without question her most famous. It has become one of those cultural cornerstones that most people know even without having read it. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who has not at least seen one adaptation. For me, the definitive version will always be the BBC adaptation . I do not think there is a better one . This was actually my first time reading the novel itself, and I experienced it as an audiobook narrated by Rosamund Pike . I do feel a warning is necessary here. If you start with her version, you will be spoiled. Pike is an exceptional narrator. Her delivery is precise, expressive, and perfectly attuned to Austen’s irony . At times it feels less like a reading and more like a performance. It is hard not to wish she had narrated all of Austen’s novels. Honestly, she could read just about anything and I would listen. Pride and Prejudice is peak Austen. The characters are sharp and memorable,...