Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Nemesis

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Nemesis by Agatha Christie

20 reviews

k4tiep's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I had fond memories of this book as it was one of the first Chrsties I read as a teenager, and I was looking forward to reading it again having forgotten most of the content.

As an adult I was dissappointed to find so much overt misogyny, lesbophobia (it's just a phase...) and dangerous myths about sexual assault laced through it.

The worst of it is in dialogue from older men in positions of authority, but their statments are never challenged by the narrative or by our leading lady, who sadly reinforces some of the prejudice in her closing remarks on the case.

The mystery itself is engaging enough by Christie standards, but borrows heavily from A Body in the Library.

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amberacks12's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

Quite spooky at times, a little slow for such a short book. I don’t like how much victim blaming there was, especially from a certain “expert” in criminology. I enjoyed the final reveal as it seemed to flip a lot of the silly assertions many of the characters made on their heads. But really this short palate cleansing cozy mystery unintentionally turned into a little bit of a slog to get through, and had me wrinkling my nose at many of the comments made throughout the book, by Miss Marple and others. I won’t go into specifics, but basically this was not my favorite Christie so far. Not the worst for sure, but unfortunately not the best either.

Writing style: 3
Enjoyment: 2
Emotional impact: 3
=2.75

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readingthroughthelists's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Surprisingly boring, this one. The action takes a very long time to get started and even at the halfway point, I still had no idea what mystery or crime we were trying to solve. Characters spend *the longest* time recounting stories/narratives, but it never feels like these recitals add that much new information. The mystery, when it finally arrives, is fine, I guess, but the entire book is much, much longer than it needed to be.

Whereas A Pocketful of Rye had some (poorly executed) Arthurian resonances, Nemesis leans more into Greek allusions, particularly those from The Oresteia.

Here it works: the comparison between Clotilde and Clytemnestra--both possessed by a love so jealous and obsessive that it justifies any other crime, both suffering from the torment of the Furies in the aftermath of committing murder--is resonant without being too heavy-handed. Anthea is a kind of suffering Electra, and Miss Marple gets to take her place as the unlikely Nemesis/Fury here to bring justice.

But speaking of justice…wasn’t Michael Rafael a rapist? This was established, right, that he’d raped some women even before he ever met Verity? So why are we rooting for him to get out of jail and meet a nice, new girl? Like, Miss Marple is a nice old lady and all, but yikes, don’t take relationship advice from her…

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