Jessi > Recent Status Updates

Doing a little reread. I was on book 2 and couldn’t remember the dynamic between some of the characters, wasn’t getting some of the jokes.

Happy release day!

Lots of spoilers for book 1. Also many reminders of Poirot’s advancing age.

This is setting up to be a favorite in the lines of Murderbot & Hitchhiker’s Guide. Central Services Major Domo makes me think of Marvin the Paranoid Android. The author narrates the audiobook.

The start of this book could be confused with The Wishing Game, but it has now started to deviate. The characters are getting flushed out. It does shift between their perspectives, but the author duo does a good job labeling who it is switching to.

I’m struggling so hard with this. I’ve been reading it for months, maybe longer. It feels longer. I want it to be like DCC or The Devils. I don’t mind gore, but I’m learning I need some humor to balance it out and keep me engaged. This is also very character driven. I deeply wanted to finish it today & call it my banned book for August. It didn’t happen.

The descriptions of female characters are WORLDS better than the first few books. This installment doesn’t have much of Murphy and no Bob at all so far.

The author has made Mr. Dixon so thoroughly & extremely unlikeable that I don’t know if I care to continue. Lenny is my favorite.

A fitting passage for me currently:
“There are a lot of things I can’t control. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few days. I don’t know what I’m going to face, what kind of choices I’m going to have to make. I can’t predict it. I can’t control it. It’s too big.”

This is book 10 but feels like it should be immediately after number 8.

Hercule Poirot is on page 1, unlike the previous Poirot story.

Enjoying this dual timeline story.

Side note- Isn’t Selena Gomez’s character in Only Murders referred to as “Mad Mabel” one season?

CWs: loss of a parent, death of a child (off page)

I like the story, but it’s character driven and slow moving.

I haven’t read a banned book in July yet. Oops. I figured one of Agatha Christie’s had to have been challenged, but I didn’t find this month’s in any banned lists. (They have been edited to remove racial slurs.) Let’s see if I can knock this classic out!

I started this in April when I got it on Libro, but I’m really hitting it this week. I don’t know why I wasn’t into it at first, but I am now.

There was an aside about another series about murders & a retirement home, a fun little Easter egg.

I let Harper pick my next read. There’s a 99% chance she picked this only because there’s a cat on the cover.

So far the descriptions of women are a lot more realistic and less cringy than previous books in the series. That’s especially fortunate because most of the characters here are women. It feels like a successful attempt at redemption. (Whether it’s a character arc or growth of the author, I’m not sure.) I wish MR Carey’s Felix Castor series had this many books, but this has a similar vibe.

I love the Poirot stories that include author Ariadne Oliver. Through that character, it’s like Christie tells how she really felt about different book-related matters.

An inconsistency that really isn’t vital to the plot at all is distracting me. Basically a birth story changed from one chapter to another.

Also our MC is deeply unlikeable and unaware (or uncaring?) how his actions impact others.

CWs: stillbirth, prematurity, (possibly) emergency C section

I really liked this author’s 2025 release I See You’ve Called in Dead & was glad so see it at this month’s selection for Libby Reads.

Poirot has finally made an appearance!

Poirot is tackling a cold case to potentially free a unlikeable but wrongly accused man.
I skipped 2 volumes of short stories to get to this, and it’s just the kind of plot I wanted to sink into.

I like this dual timeline mystery series.

It’s funny how the characters keep talking about what a 70 year old man might be physically capable of. They should meet my dad, who still chops firewood and might be more active than half the 30-somethings I know.

This recording is a full cast dramatization, so it’s entirely dialogue. I like plays, but I apparently prefer my audiobooks to have the stage directions and narrator’s voice.

I’m plugging away at it, but the Poirot short stories just aren’t the same.