I liked this, I did. But the first half was just an extended Holmes story (a pretty good one!), while the second half was basically pointless. I don’t think this should have been a full length novel. The content of the story just doesn’t justify it. The Valley of Fear was published in full in 1915 (after being serialized in The Strand of course), so by this point, Conan Doyle had been writing the character for almost thirty years. (This was also around the time […]
“Holmes,” I cried. “Is it really you?”
While gathering my thoughts to start writing this review, I kept getting the feeling that this was my favorite of the Holmes story collections so far. With this feeling in mind, I moseyed on over to Goodreads to look at my status updates to try to collect evidence to back it up (I rate and do mini-reviews for every story), whereupon I found to my surprise that my reaction to most of the stories was just good, not great. It’s a solid story collection! However, only two out […]
“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”
So I’ve been reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels since January now, and I’ve been having a great time with the audiobooks narrated by Stephen Fry (especially since my version also has these little personal essays written by Fry at the beginning of each novel or collection). But I think I might have done myself a little disservice by listening to this one in audio. I’ve read it before, when I was in grade school I think, but the only part I remembered […]
The audiobooks really do make this series better.
This review is mostly going to be me responding to some of my own thoughts from my first review, with some extras thrown in; for example, how I was considering raising this to five stars because I loved Robert Glenister’s narration so much. I love the dead tree versions of this book, but the audio adds another level. Highly recommend if you are so inclined. (I’m leaving my rating at 4.5, rounding down, for now, because of the ending. See below.) Spoilery discussion of several […]
“It’s our secrets that make us sick.”
This book bored and frustrated me for the first third, and then something turned and the plot and interesting character stuff got going, and my annoyances were subsumed under actual interest for the characters and story. Subsumed is a fun word to use by the way. Do they still sell Word of the Day toilet paper? I heard about that one time but never investigated further. So when I say that I was frustrated, I mean that I seriously contemplated not continuing with the series. […]
“I often think we should have tattooed on the back of whatever hand we use to shoot or write, ‘I might be wrong.”
I still really like this series, but I was a bit more lukewarm over this book than I wanted to be. Let’s split it up into good and not-so-good. First, good: The mystery in this one was interesting. CC de Poitiers is a wannabe lifestyle guru who has recently moved to Three Pines with her husband and child, whom she disliked and ignored. Her relationship with Crie, her overweight fourteen year old daughter, is downright emotionally abusive. She is seen as cruel by everybody who […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- Next Page »