And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
I finally understand why Agatha Christie has been deemed one of the best mystery authors of all time! And Then There Were None was filled with suspense, drama, and multiple twists and turns!
I’ve seen a few murder mystery movies, like Knives Out and Murder of the Orient Express, but this was my first time reading a murder mystery! Naturally, the first thing I did when I began reading this novel, was trying to figure out who each character was, assign them a descriptor, and then make my guess on who the ultimate killer was. Spoiler alert, I was wrong!
Honestly, I’m glad I was wrong because that means Christie did a good job at deterring me from the real killer, which, in my opinion, is difficult to do in a novel.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this book along with the Borderline Millennials Book Club. We had great conversations that analyzed the events of the previous chapters and worked with each other on theories of who the killer might be or who would die next. What was really great about this book was that we somewhat knew how people were going to die because it’s based on a poem. Some of the members in the book club even went as far as to theorize which character’s death tied to which line in the poem. I attempted to do this a bit, and got a couple correct!
While I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but compare it to the 2019 Lucy Hale movie, Fantasy Island. The beginning and premise of this movie aligned so well with And Then There Were None because of the setting, the murders, even a bit of the character. Of course, there were many differences, but having this point of reference helped me picture the setting a bit better than I think I would’ve had I not seen this movie prior.
While I really enjoyed reading And Then There Were None, I would be remiss not to discuss the cons of this book. Seeing as though this novel was written in 1938, there are certain themes and concepts that were hard for me to skip over. For one, many of the male characters are incredibly misogynistic and sexist, often citing the female characters as being weak, mentally insane, and otherwise incapable of being a mastermind. Along with this, partway through reading this book, I learned that Ten Little Soldier Boys isn’t the original title of the poem. The original title was actually Ten Little N*****s (incredibly racist), which was later changed to Ten Little Indians (still racist), and then was eventually changed to what we now know as Ten Little Soldier Boys. It’s easy to chalk this up to a sign of the times, but I still felt icky for giving complete praise to something that was inherently racist and sexist.
So, with that in mind, I will recommend this book to those who are fans of mysteries, with the caveat that this book was written quite some time ago, so beware that you may get irritated by the characters.