1984 by George Orwell

1984-1140031 (Photo credit: beachblogger42)

Hmm… Okay so I’m sure that many people have gone before me and wrote extremely intelligent reviews about how this book is so timeless and still relates to the present worlds politics and how it’s so well written for its time and basically just how wonderful it is but I’m not going to write a review like that. I was disappointed to be honest.

I found the characters to be lacking any interesting personality traits. The whole concept of the world they were living in was confusing a lot of the time and I hated the ending. The ending usually makes or breaks a book for me. I personally like things to be tied up nice and neatly with all subplots and major plots alike come to complete close. Only if the book is one in a series do I tolerate anything else. So I did not enjoy the ending of this book.

Of course there were good things about this book too, it wouldn’t make it onto dozens of best books lists if there weren’t some appealing things about it. I liked the fact that it was written in 1948 about the future, 1984 obviously, and how the author had come up with this possible world we could have all been living in. I’m not sure if you can call it a post-apocalyptic or dystopian future as there doesn’t seem to have been any major disaster or pandemic but it is a completely different world all the same so it’s definitely post-something.

I don’t know, I’m actually trying really hard to think of something else good to write about this novel but I’m failing miserably. I feel like because it’s such a classic that I should like it but I apologise to any Orwell fans out there as this was a brutal disappointment in my eyes. There were too many confusing twists, the whole Party ideal was ridiculous and also extremely confusing at the best of times (don’t get me started on DOUBLETHINK) and the characters lacked appeal.

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• Selections from One-Star Amazon Reviews of Orwell’s 1984 (biblioklept.org)
• Re-reading Now: 1984 by George Orwell (suomeagirl.com)