The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

The writing is as dry as burnt toast.

We as readers are not invited into the book, we are held at a cool distance and flatly recited the story; it had the liveliness of a Wikipedia article. In fact, numerous sections felt as if they had been lifted directly out of an encyclopedia. For example: “[...] a girl who wore the Peter Pan collar. This newly fashionable feature on dresses, adopted by all my friends, allowed us to abandon the old high collars with their uncomfortable boning for a turned-down collar inspired by the main character in Barrie's play. (p.56)” The author thought this sentence belonged in a NOVEL. A novel! This is unacceptable writing, absolutely unacceptable.

Why 2 stars instead of 1? The twist with the Agatha-narrated chapters being her manuscript, that it was filled with lies to make her look sympathetic and her husband look bad, and that this would be used against him if he didn't do what she wanted. So +1 stars for a clever twist.