Book Review: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The town of King’s Abbot loose two of important members of the community in the space of a day, but only one is a murder though it has a connection to the other death which relates to another earlier death. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie is the fourth book of her mystery series featuring Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, whose retirement in King’s Abott is abruptly ended by the murder of his acquaintance Roger Ackroyd.

Christie is rightfully considered one of best writers of the mystery genre and this book that “breaks all the rules” is one of the reasons why. I knew coming into this book that there was a twist, and it wasn’t until 90 pages left in the book that I realized what the twist was, looking back the main clue stood out and I should have realized it earlier since I already knew the conventional detective tropes would be turned on its head. As for the overall story, I enjoyed it, and I loved my first reading of Hercule Poirot (I imagined him speaking as portrayed by David Suchet) making interested in other books featuring him. This is my second Christie book—And Then There Where None—and I’ve enjoyed both very much which means that I’ll be exploring Agatha Christie more in the future.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd could be said to subvert tropes while also creating a trope, but however you classify it Agatha Christie wrote a great novel with a fascinating set up and interesting character in Hercule Poirot.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Nation Comes of Age by Page Smith

The Nation Comes of Age: A People's History of the Ante-Bellum Years by Page Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With the Founders fading into history, a new generation of leadership took the helm of the United States, but they faced a problem they didn’t want to deal with and in the end, it would create the nation’s greatest crisis. The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years is the fourth volume of Page Smith’s A People’s History series follows the deaths of Jefferson and Admas focusing on the expansion of the nation and how it resulted in the idea of the Union to grow in appreciation even as the morality of slavery increasing turned the North and South against one another until open war begins.

In the previous volume Smith introduced his view of the United States as schizophrenic in viewing itself against reality then extended it from how one section of the nation looked at the country against the vision of the other. This social-political schizophrenia during the 35 years covered in the book was centered on one issue, slavery which as I stated above quickly became a moral issue thanks to those reformers who abhorred it much to the surprise of Southerners who in their heart of hearts agreed. This wasn’t a completely political and military (Mexican-American War) only history, Smith takes over half the book to look at various social history elements from the status of women to culture (art, literature, etc.) to the reform movements and finally abolitionism; he also covered the exploration by Americans of the interior West and finding routes to the Pacific West following the adventures of such men like Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, and John Fremont while following on their heels were settlers whose on experiences were covered as well. While Smith follows a lot of political figures, he ends the volume describing the rise of Abraham Lincoln and setting up the coming bloody crisis that would scare the nation. Overall this 1200+ page book covers a lot of things that happened in the United States over the course of 35 years even as Smith spread his narrative to give a very comprehensive he was focused on what everything was leading to and how everything shaped the coming conflagration.

The Nation Comes of Age is the critical volume in Page Smith’s history of the United States, the use of primary sources of ordinary people to help tell the story of the nation during these critical 35 years brings it alive and informs the reader with new facets of American history they might have not known fully before.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Lore Olympus Volume Five by Rachel Smythe

Lore Olympus: Volume Five by Rachel Smythe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A relationship is ending, a relationship is beginning, a secret revealed to the audience, and it’s revealed to someone who is furious that the event happened and was hidden from him, oh and the female protagonist disappears. Lore Olympus Volume Five by Rachel Smythe finds Hades and Persephone begin a relationship after the former breaks up with Minthe but things get complicated when we learn how Kore became Persephone.

Covering episodes #103-126 of her webcomic, Smythe zeros in on Persephone’s backstory both from a brief glimpse from her point-of-view but other investigating her life before Olympus. However, the two protagonists don’t take a backseat as Hades attempts to figure out how to deal with his feelings and Persephone tries to continue to figure out things, Smythe’s continual work on deepening the characters really pays off in this volume because as the two most important characters gain layers it allows secondary characters to get more layers as well strengthening the overall piece. Once again Smythe’s artwork and choices to denote the different types of immortals—nymphs, gods, Olympians, Titans—makes the worldbuilding better and the colorizing choices allow the reader to realize something is up when a character’s shading darkness or lightens or completely changes for a few panels. Unlike the last volume, this one—though honestly, I was reading it on and off for a month—resonated better. I can’t tell you the reason why because frankly I don’t know why I had the issue with Volume Four, but things clicked for me in this one better maybe more things happening allowed me to appreciate the two protagonist’s struggles more because I knew other things were going actively without them knowing about it.

Lore Olympus Volume Five by Rachel Smythe continues with compelling characters, expanding the narrative out but keeping it from bloating, and great artwork. To say the least the way the volume’s ending has me interested in what is next.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Book of Job by Richardo Graham

The Book of Job by Ricardo Graham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The story of his suffering and wondering why has fascinated believers of both Judaism and Christianity, but Job’s struggle to understand is only one of many that is touched up in the oldest book of the Bible. The Book of Job is the supplementary book of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study (4th Quarter 2016) by Richardo Graham covers the major themes of he believes it is important to bring out over the course of 14 chapters. Covering 117 pages, Graham goes over several themes that come to mind when one talks about the Book of Job: Why God allows bad things to happen to good people, God and human suffering, and is suffering the result of sin (i.e. retributive punishment)? But Graham also covers such Adventist topics as the Great Controversy and making connections between Jesus and Job not only in their innocent suffering but also if Job knew his Redeemer. The one thing I disagreed with Graham on was his characterization of Elihu, which given how God handles Job’s other friends at the end of the Book of Job seems to contradict Graham’s thought. However this minor quibble doesn’t mean this isn’t a great book overall.

View all my reviews