Even tragedies usually end with a moral lesson or takeaway, but one thing I loved about this book was that it leaves the reader with more questions t Even tragedies usually end with a moral lesson or takeaway, but one thing I loved about this book was that it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Agatha Christie is famous for writing countless mystery novels, and this is actually the first of her works I have read. I was certainly not disappointed, and while reading it the influence it has had on many other thriller mysteries of all media became obvious. And Then There Were None is a truly engaging read that keeps the reader guessing, and it is especially fun to read for people like me who are big fans of series like Phoenix Wright or other mysteries with ludicrous setups and endings, and while there is no clear moral, it leaves the reader thinking, which has a much greater impact. The basis of the plot may sound a little familiar to fans of mystery, and that’s because this story is probably that one’s inspiration. It is what many people would now consider a “bottle episode”, while here it is more like a “bottle novel”. The story involves ten people invited to an island mansion for a weekend getaway, and for the most part it takes place on that island, isolated by rough seas from civilization. After a few chapters of character introduction, the story reaches a major turning point where a key point to a situation each of the characters were in is revealed. I won’t say what these events are, because it was a huge shock when I read it for the first time. After this happens, the plot enters what I call the paranoia period, that lasts from here to the epilogue. It seems to affect even the reader, with the amount of stress emanating from these characters that become progressively more desperate to save themselves from whatever is picking them off, one by one. One thing I loved about this story is how the use of basing elements of the plot off of a nursery rhyme in a mature setting works really well. Before it was used in Nightmare On Elm Street to produce shocks, it was used here to produce suspense. The reader becomes entwined in a paradox of knowing and not knowing; they have a vague idea of what will happen next, but no idea when or how, which makes them want to keep reading until they get there. I also loved how it got to the point where the killer wasn’t even a person anymore, and the reader can feel the remaining characters slowly give up as the story closes. Something about the way Christie wrote it allows the nihilism of the characters to grow in proportion to the growth of the audience’s excitement. This also adds to this perpetual motion machine of a story, and keeps the reader interested. I won’t say much about the antagonist, but I will say that Christie also does a great job of neither creating a one-dimensional villain nor alienating the physical villain from their purpose and playing that purpose off as the real villain. I would definitely say that this book is not for early readers. I don’t mean that children cannot read it, in fact if they are at a good reading and maturity level then by all means, I recommend it to them. The book is not something for people who aren’t up to a complex story, or people that don’t like having to think. It’s sort of like the difference between the original Lorax movie and the recent 3D-animated adaptation. If you liked the original better, you will probably appreciate this book more because they both require some deep thought. Also, as I said before, fans of extremely complex mysteries will enjoy the setup and reveal at the end, and being able to analyze how it was done. Fellow INTP people, this is a book for you! All in all, this is a great and engaging read that can be enjoyed by most people. It is one of the greatest mysteries I have ever read that always keeps the reader guessing. It is timeless and complex, and even for someone like me who is easily bored this book always kept me engaged, and for this I highly recommend it....more
A friend of mine had been bugging me for a while to read this book, and I finally got to it over the summer. Going into this book, the last things I eA friend of mine had been bugging me for a while to read this book, and I finally got to it over the summer. Going into this book, the last things I expected to read about in the first few chapters were weird unnecessary metaphors and ghosts made of game meat. John Dies at the End by David Wong (Jason Pargin) is a book that I feel one can only like if someone in their life bugs them to read it. It’s lovable in a way that feels like you have to be forced into the first few chapters before loving it.
The book is set in an undisclosed city in America where some idiots do mysterious drugs at a party, gain the power to see into another dimension, and have to stop an evil meat computer from replacing everyone on earth with Korrok-hailing clones. Alright, there’s more than that, like cops controlled by weird parasites and magic Scooby-Doo glasses. Well, even that sounds like a mess of a book. It’s such a hard book to explain, and I know this sounds cliche, but you’ll just have to read it to see what it’s really about. The story is told as if the author was one of the main characters, “Dave”. Coincidentally and completely unrelated to the book, the two main characters in a certain comic series the same friend recommended to me have the same names as the main two characters, John and Dave. If you happen to have some free time and want to change your perception of every young adult book where a stereotypical protagonist is “different” and “fights the system in a sci-fi/fantasy world” (looking at you, Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins), then by all means, waste some time with this book.
This review sounds pretty negative, but that’s very misleading. I actually loved this book, for one reason. It was absolutely hilarious. Some people may remember the old internet days in the early-to-mid-2000s where “random” humor was everywhere. People couldn’t go anywhere without seeing or hearing “Tacocat XD” or something of the sort. It was funny for a while, but these days it’s sort of boring. This book is so random I actually cringed while first reading it. However, I realized that it wanted to make me feel that way. The author intentionally makes this book so ridiculously random that you’ll start to like it ironically, and then you’re gone too far and you begin to take it seriously. It’s sort of like revisiting a series that was likeable a couple years ago and realizing how bad the story was, but not being able to help reading it anyways.
It’s not exactly a fast-paced book in regards to the plot, but there are so many side events it feels fast-paced. My favorite thing about the characters in this book is probably how the author doesn’t even try to flesh them out unnaturally, tying back to how the book is written as if it were nonfiction. This kind of makes them even more relateable, while at the same time not letting the reader get too attached to them. It’s so hard to pick a favorite moment, but I really love how absolutely real the character’s actions are. They feel like regular people instead of cookie-cutter protagonists, in sort of a similar fashion to Shaun of the Dead. Another thing I like about this book is that it doesn’t try to teach the reader anything, it just wants to tell a story. If I got anything out of it, it’s probably something uncharacteristically simple and overdone for a book like this such as “Don’t do drugs”, or even something misleading and negative like “Forget everything you see, say and do nothing”. It’s such a weird experience being exposed to a book that doesn’t want the reader to live the adventure with it. I suppose that’s why the reader gets even more engrossed in it. The only people who I would really recommend this to are those who want something completely different from any book, people that want a book where they will learn absolutely nothing from, but still have tons of fun reading. ...more
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