Anyone else read this?
I figured, what with the movie coming out and all, I'd read this book to see what the fuss is about. I'm about halfway through it now, and I have to say I'm quite disappointed. I expected better after all the popular hoopla.
The mystery is well constructed (halfway through and I haven't solved it yet--Agatha Cristy never managed to pull that off), but the writing itself is just this side of amateur. With all the praise, I had expected something really meaty and substantial, the kind of book you have to read slowly to grasp every nuance of what the author is trying to say. Instead, this novel falls into the category of what I like to call "brain-candy." I started reading it this afternoon and I'll be done before I go to bed tonight. Definitely not weighty material. The dialogue is trite and obvious, the narration clumsy, the characters one-dimensional, and the author has a really unfortunate habit of telegraphing his punches. When the characters stumble onto a new clue, I've already been there for a few pages.
All in all, I'll give it a 7 out of 10, mainly on the merits of the mystery. On the writing alone, maybe a 4 out of 10.
Edited, Wed Apr 26 23:54:58 2006 by Ambrya