Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Brave New World

This book starts as a satirical look at a "utopia" where in women and men have sex regularly, a caste system is thoroughly enforced with subliminal messaging, drug use is regular and encouraged, and to be different is to be a Problem. Everything you would expect a book written in its time to consider bad and evil.

And then it turns into a disjointed novel about an indigenous man wrestling with this supposed utopia hes only heard about and the love of a woman who has fully subscribed to it and a man who was born into this world, critiques it with every fiber of his being, only to in the end cowar at the idea of anything different.

Aside from the all to vasual rascism, both inside the narrative/characters and the author himself, this book is hard to read because it follows no discernable plot atructure. It is interesting for its world building, but it seems to build up all of these Bad Plot Beats to end in just...one Bad Plot Beat. Its obviously trying to say "Hey lets not make the world like this one" but at what cost to my nrrative intrigue?

The chatacters barely change, there is a Ton of monologuing and proselytizing, and the story is just sad. Im sure for its time it was an incredible book, full of new concepts and conversations. But for today, it reads like a much too long high school novel in its first draft. The saving grace is the interesting world building itself and the knowledge that this book is a blueprint for the dystopian genere as we know it today.

Content Warnings

pleu's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

It's a classic for a reason and I found it very thought-provoking in an enjoyable way. I didn't care for the ending tho as it felt a bit like an "easy escape", on the other hand the essay by the author seem to indicate that he too didn't care for the ending as he grew older so I guess it's a pretty acceptable opinion.

Some part of the Swedish translation makes me wonder how this was received in it's original language, as some expressions seem oddly worded. I'm not sure if that's the author or the translation.

I did get a chuckle out of the Swedish preface by Göran Rosenberg, as it was from 2000 and clearly dated itself when he said that 1984 is now very unrealistic to him as information is free and open and it will be hard for any country to change that. In this day and age that part falls a bit flat but the text was still a good preface for the book. Currently available at https://www.rosenberg.se/frord-huxley if one reads a different edition of the book (only in Swedish).

Content Warnings

bones_jackson's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging slow-paced

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

2.0

O autor tinha uma ideia boa, mas ele escreveu umas coisas tão doidas que parece que ele criou drogas novas pra se fumar, porque uma droga normal não faria uma pessoa brizar tanto como ele quando tava escrevendo esse livro

Content Warnings

mirabellee_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

More...