Hi everyone! I hope you’re all well. Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another post in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews. If you’d like to participate in the challenge yourself, you can find the list of topics for 2024 here, and if you’re interested in reading other people’s responses to this week’s topic, you can find them here.
Things I Like/Dislike About The Mystery Genre
When I was younger, I really disliked ‘mystery’ as a genre and in general. I hated not knowing what was going to happen. My brain works best with order, planning and as much foreknowledge as possible of any given situation, and it always has.
I really hated having to sit through Poirot, Marple, Sherlock Holmes, and the like when I was younger, but my parents were obsessed with those shows, so they were always on.
Now, having been an adult for a very long time, I have to tell you that I have changed my mind entirely about mystery. After despising it for so long, I came to read my first Agatha Christie novel (Murder on the Orient Express) and was hooked immediately.
What I’ve deduced is that my brain just wasn’t ready all those years ago; it didn’t need all that complicated whodunnit-ness cluttering the place up. However, now, as an adult barrelling towards forty at an alarming rate and all that that entails (bills, health, family), mystery stories are such a wonderful distraction. There’s nothing like being drawn into a story that has you scratching your head as you try to figure out what on earth is going on, and I’m certainly here for it.
Anyway, that’s enough out of me for now. How can this be post 36?
Thanks, as always, for stopping by to read my post. It really does mean the world.
Until next time,
George
© 2024 GLT
Categories: life, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge
GEORGE L THOMAS 
I was like that too, but since then I have not only come to love that genre, I write it too!
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That’s great! We’re evolving all the time! 🙂
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Well, trying to, anyway, George…
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They’re a good distraction for sure!
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One hundred percent! 🙂
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I can see the young mind being frustrated. I will say, another mystery pet peeve of mine is when the writer doesn’t play fair and doesn’t give you the clues you need to solve it. Admittedly a movie, but I appreciated how all the clues were there in Knives Out even though I only saw them in retrospect.
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Yes, that is annoying, Greta, I agree with you.
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I 100% agree with you. It’s not fair if we don’t get all the clues, and I dislike unfairness. But also I want it to be a challenge, so if it’s always going to be the same formula or exact same type of character that will always be the killer, I get bored!
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That is really interesting. I had a hard time with mysteries when I was a kid, but it was because I had a difficult time with the images of dead bodies, and that would often take my very vivid imagination somewhere unpleasant (I still remember the dead body on the beach in one of the Agatha Christie mysteries my parents watched – just as vivid over 30 years later!). I loved kid mysteries though, the kind that didn’t have the gruesome bodies. Trixie Belden was my favourite, though I’d read Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys in a pinch. Now I love the mystery genre if they’re well done and take work to figure out. Sherlock, Morse, Marple, Death in Paradise… even a good medical mystery like House will intrigue me. I like it even better if the people are interesting; if there’s some irreverent, sarcastic or dark humour in it; and if anyone breaks a stereotype. That’s my jam for most anything, and it holds for mysteries as well! I’m glad that you’re able to enjoy them now, and that they’re a great escape (I agree). I have recently loved the Thursday Murder Club books and Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place Wrong Time was an interesting twist. Great post as always!
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Thank you! I’m with you on breaking stereotypes. I think more writers and storytellers are realising that humans come in a wide variety and that there is no ‘one size fits all’ for a particular type of person. And thanks, I’m adding Wrong Place Wrong Time to my ever growing TBR list. I love a good twist.
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