Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express is the 10th Hercule Poirot book and it's average rating on goodreads

is 4.12/5 . The book was first published in 1933 and the English paperback version has 322 pages.

As some of you may know, I haven't been a fan of reading for long. It started about a year ago when

I read the Hunger Games -trilogy. I have read two books by Agatha Christie before: And Then There 

Were None & Death on the Nile. I read both books for school. So many people told me Agatha Christie's books are good but I honestly couldn't remember if I liked them that much. I decided to

read this book for my reading challenge (previous post) and see if I like it.

"Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. A passenger lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside."

(Goodreads)

Poirot gets the task to find out who the murderer is. I think about 1/3 of the book is him interviewing

the travelers, trying to catch the killer. This case is a bit more complicated than what Poirot is used to:

it seems to become more illogical all the time. Everyone seems to have an alibi but it is also impossible

for someone to have left the train. 

I enjoyed the book though I am not a fan of mystery and crime. I thought the interview part was sometimes a bit boring. Nevertheless, the story was interesting and I really wanted to know who the killer is since nothing made sense! I think I would like crime books more if I could actually figure out who the killer is before they reveal it but I have never managed to do that! In some books it is also impossible. 

I read this book in one day (well, 6 hours) since the Finnish version had just 214 pages and I was

doing the reading challenge, It was nice to read a book which isn't a trilogy or series for a change!

★★★★

Reading challenge

I have participated in a challenge where you need to read as much you can during 24 hours. The challenge is Finnish and you can find it here. During the 24 hours you are supposed to update your

progress on your blog. You tell for example how much you've read and what else you've been doing.

The only rule is that you are supposed to start or finish the challenge on Saturday 15th of August.

I will start my challenge soon, at 12 pm on Friday and I will update my progress here. I have chosen

a couple of books to read. I will try to finish Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and

start Purge by Sofi Oksanen.

We'll see how far I get! Some people read 1000 pages or even more but my goal is closer to 400 pages, haha. I will update this post a couple of times (under the pictures) to tell you my progress! You can also see my progress on goodreads since I will update it too :)

11:45 - Challenge starts in 15 minutes. I am watching vlogs of Mascha (Dutch youtuber) and
soon I will make some tea and enjoy it while reading :)

13:45 - I am on page 85 of Murder on the Orient Express. I think the book is good so far! Now it is time to make some lunch and have a break! 

14:52 - I am ready to go on with reading. I am sitting outside and sunbathing at the same time.

18:33 - I have just finished Murder on the  Orient Express and I give it 4/5 stars. Mystery and crime novels aren't my favorite genres but this book was quite good and I enjoyed it! Now it is time for a break. I have read total 210 pages now.

20:58 - My break became 2,5 hours long because I started to clean my closet and throw away some old clothes. I am still not done with it but now it is time to read again!

22:12 - I am on page 58 of Purge. I have read just 259 pages today so I am not sure if I will make it to 400. I will not stress about it because else I don't enjoy reading anymore. I have a headache do I think I will have a break again and continue with cleaning my closet.

23:06 - I am done with cleaning my closet and it is time to go on with reading. I am not so into Purge (at least yet) so we'll see how long I feel like reading.

0:15 - I am almost sleeping on my bed, too tired to read. Time to go brush my teeth and go on with reading in the morning! I have read 290 pages today so I probably won't make it to 400. I will still try!

1:00 - I still went on with reading for some time because the chapters were short so I started a new one all the time. Before I knew it, I had reached part 2 of the book. It is good to stop here for tonight! I have read total 317 pages now.. Maybe I can still make it to 400! Good night <3

10:04 - I have been awake for an hour. I have eaten breakfast and watched a couple of vids. Now I still have 2 hours to read! I try to make it to 400 pages.

11:42 - I made it to 400 pages! Now I still have 18 minutes left.

12:02 - Reading challenge is over! I made it to 417 pages and I finished one book and I have read almost half of Purge. The font size in my books was quite small and the pages were full of text: if I had other kind of books I could have made it a lot further, maybe 500-600 pages. 

This was definitely a fun experience and I may try it again another time :) the only thing that made it a bit difficult was my sudden urge to clean my closet.. I think I will continue with that now ;) and a cup of coffee! 

Total 417 pages in 24 hours, 1 book finished and another one 47% done!

Recent outfits

Hello! Have you noticed I have been blogging on my phone lately? I think you can see it if you look at the picture size on laptop screen. I just like to do it on my phone because I have all my pictures here.

It has finally felt like summer and you can also see that in my outfits. I just had a couple outfit pictures which are taken  before going somewhere = nothing fancy. They are just taken using a mirror.

Shirt, Inside / Skirt, Cool Cat / Shoes, KappAhl

Faux leather shorts, H&M / Shirt, Bershka / bag, HEMA / Shoes, Click Shoes

Dress, Boohoo (belt with it) / bag, H&M

T-shirt, H&M / skirt, Cool Cat / knitwear, H&M / bag, H&M / shoes, KappAhl / bracelet, Nomination

The last outfit I wore yesterday when I went to Salo with my grandma. Possibly a post about that later!

xx Janina

Gel nails

I haven't been doing nail art for months by now. I kind of lost interest when I was done with school and I just had to study home. However, my friend, Emilia, has just got tools for doing acrylic nails and my interest in nails came back all of a sudden. I asked her to do me gel nails with my tools at home since I have always failed and now I have gel nails again!

I asked her to do them so that I could see if my tools and gels aren't good or if I am just doing something wrong. Now we just wait and see :) 

Emilia used clear gel on my nails because I want to be able to do my nails on the gel and have natural looking nails if I remove my nail polish. The result is good and I hope these stay on for some weeks! (Emilia promised to do acrylics to me already, yay!)

I finished my nails with this reaaally girly manicure. I am not a fan of loose glitter but the result is better than what I expected. My next challenge is to not rip off my nail polish (and gel at the same time). 

The pink nail polish here is by OPI and it is called Pink-ing of you. 

Back Home

Hello! I have arrived home from the Netherlands two days ago. I had such a great time with my boyfriend! We had a relaxing vacation and we went to London. Now I still have 3 weeks of vacation 'til school starts. I don't have any plans for the rest of my vacation but hopefully it will be good!

Here are some pictures of my vacation!

 I am so into my organizer and making it look pretty! I bought a lot of stickers and post-it notes from HEMA in the Netherlands :) would you be interested in seeing my planner and how I make it look pretty?

Breakfast of €1,25 and so delicious! I miss it already.

Going from France to UK. My first fish&chips ever. I was feeling a bit nauseous so I could eat barely half of it, though. It was so delicious!

Oxford Street in the morning! We arrived before 8 already so it was quite calm still. In the afternoon it was just awful! You could barely walk.

My new jacket from Victoria's Secret <3 the store was sooo beautiful! And it felt so luxurous.

Back in the Netherlands :) the last week was full of HEMA breakfasts and buying organizer stuff.

Time to go home :( always so hard to say goodbye!