I found the premise really fun and I enjoyed the start of this book a lot - I went in almost completely blind so when Poirot was introduced. I started to waiver a lot from how repetitive most of the investigation actually was? It was a lot of "was Joyce a liar" "yes, she lied a lot" "I see" . Though it was unintentionally really funny to me about much literally everyone was roasting the13-year old murder victim - multiple people called her LUMPY? Like multiple grown people dunked on her saying she was a braggart, vaguely ugly, unimpressive? Like damn. But funny or not, it was kind of a chore to have Poirot more or less have the same conversation several times before any progression was made - PLUS a lot of the momentum on where to follow clues occasionally kind of dropped out of nowhere? Like full on intuition only? I know that part of his character is that he's ridiculously empathetic and logical but why did that random housekeeper go to Ariadne to confess to something randomly plot relevant that happened a long time ago??? Things like that kinda brought me out of it. The plot itself did pick up a lot towards the end thankfully even though I had already vaguely sussed out the killer early on. There wasn't a ton of suspense so this wasn't a big deal for me at least!
Though I can't hate on these characters that work with/alongside Poirot, I don't have a legacy of connection with these characters but I really enjoyed Ariadne just for how surreal and eccentric she felt. I'd like to grab a few more of the books just to see what happened to her in the past that she experiences murder in a "oh no not again" Spence seemed like genuinely good guy and I'd love to see him in his prime before his retirement too; I have a soft spot for genuinely good cops that try to do the right thing.
I think the most aging thing is that a lot of the language is very 'of the times', multiple characters are like "MAN IT'S WACK THAT WE CAN'T JUST PUT PEOPLE IN MENTAL HOSPITALS ANYMORE" This came up so much??? They were all very pressed about how people (namely children) were not being sectioned anymore. A lot of the feelings around the murder not being sexually motivated was weird too? But I'm mostly just raising an eyebrow because it feels like an 'of the times' problem.
Poirot himself was also really charming even if it felt like a lot of the answers fell to him through...divine intervention? His little vanities are charming, his dedication to justice is endearing and generally his voice is very enjoyable. The fact that he refused to change his shoes while walking the entirety of the village been there, done that when the shoes make the outfit Poirot.
While there was a lot of toff about repeating the same questions over and over, Christie does make dialogue mostly fun and witty. I really wish I had spent a little more time making notes of all the characters to try to keep things straight but like I mentioned earlier, I kind of guessed it was Roweena and Michael - the reveal about Michael being Miranda's father I didn't see nor the fact that they wanted to buy a Greek island??? The literary/mythological comparisons were nice sprinkles on top of a vaguely mismatched sundae at least.
I'm rating it a 3.75 ⭐ because it was mostly unintentionally very funny, the strangely cosy vibe and it's really motivated me to read more of Christie's work. I get the feeling that I picked a moderately bad starting point to start the Poirot journey but the point is that I'm gonna start it.