#6 The Ickabog by JK Rowling
One little lie takes down an entire kingdom.
An okay fic that thankfully avoided the pitfalls of Harry Potter - that is to say, this fic was short and to the point and didn't meander into unnecessary territory over and over again. Very much a political commentary, most of the comparisons did go over my kids' heads. However, in light of what's going on between Russia and Ukraine right now, the parallels were almost uncomfortably close (ie - the Chief Advisor eliminating anyone who dissents). Predictable in a lot of ways, but kind of endearing too.
#7 Death On The Nile by Agatha Christie
Pretty little rich girl is murdered on a boat full of people voyaging up the Nile River. Everyone is a suspect.
I hated it. It was slow and boring and the characters fell into only three categories for me - annoying, forgettable, or downright revolting. I found myself not caring about a single one of them, didn't care about who died (there's more than one murder), and I didn't care about who did the killings or their motives for that matter. (As it turns out, I was mostly right in my guess.) I found the author's style to be just awful - very abrupt and stiff, not one of the characters felt like an actual, real human to me.
