Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Fahrenheit 451

i agree with everything Sideria said so i’ll just leave this here: “Besides that it also describes a future of degenerating and increasingly faster entertainment. Entertainment that doesn't ask hard questions. And in that it often managed to predict some bad current tendencies in 21st century media. 30sec short form video bombardement. But as much as the book gets right about the future, it gets wrong as well. Because books are more popular than ever. Long form video content and endless critiques of power structures still exist. There's just more of everything now and (as of now) we make our own decision on what we spend our time on. As a cautionary tale it does work I think and Ray Bradbury never claimed that he tried to predict the future.

The book doesn't escape the solid undertone of 1950's pre feminist misogyny. Every single woman in this book except Clarisse (who's childish and innocent) is hysterical. It's not even clear if they have a job. Granted, given the book's short 200 page length, you never truly get an idea of everyday life in this Dystopia but I'd assume gender dynamics is one the things that hadn't changed. This is the biggest point of critique I have.”

Content Warnings

squishy_bee's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

It's a very quotable book, but I do find it lacks nuance sometimes.

Content Warnings

matonnhermann's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

magfx's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

gvstyris's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.

Fahrenheit 451 was the bane of my existence when I first read it, and I can now confidently confirm that my original 14-year-old opinion was incredibly based.

This book is a slog. For one thing, the world-building is pretty messy. The 'book ban' in this dystopia isn't a harrowing tale of authoritarian censorship, or particularly topical given what's happening in the 21st century US, because it's not about censorship at all: it's a 'metaphor' for a world where television rots everyone's braincells and short attention spans kill public interest in literature. In that way, Fahrenheit 451 reads as a 1950s time capsule that has not stood the test of time. It's anti-progress and (lowkey) just technology fear-mongering, which made a lot more sense once I unpacked Bradbury's political beliefs.

Honestly, this novel probably would've worked better in its original short story format. Montag's character arc is underdeveloped and unconvincing regardless, and I would've preferred to not to suffer through all 200-something pages of it.

Also, I feel the need to add that I can see why this book is so popular with a bunch of book lovers...lol. Anyways, I'm excited to re-read 1984 soon!

I'd like to conclude with some of Ray Bradbury's other words of true wisdom:

I don't believe in government. I hate politics. I'm against it. And I hope that sometime this fall, we can destroy part of our government, and next year destroy even more of it. The less government, the happier I will be.

Content Warnings

allthebooks36's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Content Warnings

More...