Not sure how I feel about this one. Maybe it would be easier to note down the parts I like, the parts I respect and the parts that I was unsure of.
Like:
- Trying to guess how each person had killed someone was fun
- I actually quite liked Andy. I know he’s cast as ‘the boring one’ but in other words, he’s probably the most normal one LOL And he probably has one of the best scenes in the novel.
- Juliette was cool and I’m glad it seems she might be a recurring character
Respect:
- Meta aspects where narrator acknowledges the medium is an ebook
- Meta references throughout to the detective rules and referring to percentage read in relation to the plot LOL
- Even though the narrator is not specifically ‘unreliable’, the characterisations of his family are definitely biased and through his particular lenses and it was interesting to see a lot of things he observed flipped on their head when the actual intent behind them (not his reading of it) were revealed
- How so many little things lead to the solving of the mystery, I thought that was neat
Unsure:
- The narrator points out his tendency to cope with things by making jokes but I can’t tell if I find his way of narrating funny or try-hard…
- ‘Not an unreliable narrator’ but still feels like deliberately misleading.
- But so obviously misleading that it makes some things predictable (e.g. the comment about locking lips made me think ‘right. so CPR’)
- But sometimes so obviously misleading but still enough vagueness that you couldn’t guess the actual situation (e.g. getting punched was obviously not intentional on the puncher’s side but the exact scenario wasn’t clear)
- The culprit was kinda tragic but also kinda cop-out?
I already have the second book in my GooglePlay Books library so I guess I’ll give it a shot eventually and make my judgements on if I’ll follow the series then. Often the first book in a mystery series suffers from having to do necessary set-up.
Categories: Book Reviews
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