Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - 1984

While important to read for the cultural significance and interesting moral dilemma behind it, I wasn’t a big fan of this book. It was a bit repetitive and some parts were a bit too slow for me.

Spoiler

The psychological torture may have been realistic for the scenario but it was too graphic for me.

Overall not bad writing, just not my cup of tea.

Content Warnings

laurenu8's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

chaosandwildflowers's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

I wanted to like this book so much. I really did. I love classics! I love challenging books that make you think! But from the moment I turned the first page, I just could not get into it!

First issue: the writing style. It's so...dry? Like even when things get interesting towards the end, it's a bit of a slog to get through. And this might have been the fault of my particular edition, but the paragraphs were SO long and blocky, especially once I got to the book within the book (don't even get me started on how useless I found the book within the book).

Second problem: the characters. To put it bluntly, I hated every single character. All of them. Except for the clothesline lady, I liked her well enough lmao, but everyone else I just wanted to strangle with my bare hands!! And I understand, I get it, I realize that this is part of the book's commentary, but what I've learned from reading this book is that it doesn't matter how ~deep~ the commentary is, if the character whose thoughts I'm reading is hateable and a loser, I just could not care less about what they have to say! And Julia? Equally hateable. She and Winston are, even at their best, SO self centered, I just honestly wanted to throw the book across the room the whole time either one of them was on the page, which was the entire time.

When I take a step back and look at this through the perspective of having read it, I see how Orwell was using every detail to get his message across, this whole idea of warning us of totalitarianism and the danger of not knowing the past, and all of that, but I don't think I will ever willingly read this book again.

So, at the end of the day, would I recommend this book? Yes and no. If you're looking for an entertaining dystopia on the level of The Hunger Games, you're not going to find that here. Buuuuuuut if you're in the kind of headspace where you're ready to read an unentertaining, repetitive, dryly written book with exactly zero likable characters to be seen; if you think you're ready to slog through all that, then yes would recommend it because I think its the kind of book everyone should read at least once. Just don't go into it expecting to root for the characters or care more than a little about the plot.

Content Warnings

emmalouisereads's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

The story and the world Orwell has created is chillingly realistic as a dystopian.

I knew a lot of the story from what I gleaned from popular culture. The only surprise really is whether there is a happy or sad ending - which I won’t spoil.

I think I would have appreciated a more ruthless editor. There are times where we have the same information repeated to us over and over, and I found myself thinking, I know Orwell, you told me this. There’s also a large amount of a book read by the main character which confirms what the main character knows, which of course we also knew.. so it would have been perhaps fine to say the book confirmed his knowledge?

At any rate, this is a disturbing tale. Too close to possible in some parts.

Content Warnings

kibbles15's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The last time I read this book, I gave the book 1 star. I don't remember my reasoning, but I think it had something to do with the intense descriptions of torture in the last part of the book. Now that I am older, I appreciate this book for what it is. It is a well written (disturbing) book. I would recommend a person read the book at least once in their lives. That being said, I still only give the book 3 stars because the plot moves very slowly and is very explanatory.

Content Warnings

pott's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective tense 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? It's complicated

3.75

Winston is a bitch ass motherfucker L + ratio haha imagine getting yourself fucked over so bad what a fucking loser

I found the book quite satisfactory. Its concept really captivated me and the whole setting of it was quite haunting, yet alluring to me. I found myself sitting the book in hand just reading for hours. My only critique would be that

Spoiler

the *book* sequence could have been cut a little shorter. It might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I absolutely can not stand that long of explanations of things, especially if it all could be expressed in much shorter ways. I had to dig myself an audiobook version on the side to get through it and that too, was great misery to me even in 1.75x speed.

Nontheless my slander, I enjoyed the book quite a bit.

What surprised me though, was when I was shocked to learn Winston was a huge misogynist. Of course, this is a book from 1949! What else could I have expected, you may ask. And you are right. That was my mistake and I will learn to think better in the future. Either way, I quite honestly started to want dreadful things to happen to him, as one would when they come across a misogynistic white man. Reasonably, he was a motherless, never felt the love of a woman idiotic little -dipshit in my eyes. Absolute fucking wanker. And well... I was right. That's what he was. His mother- no his whole family was gone. I started to understand him, yet could not redeem him in my eyes just because of a sob story. Regardless, he did get some character development after getting a girlfriend. (common case) And I did realise that he in fact is not the worst of the worst.

I can not say, that I like Winston, but I can respect his growth.

Maybe he's not so bad. I would like to apologize and redract my ratio.

Content Warnings

More...