A review by mikathereviewer
The Stranger by Albert Camus

dark reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

It was alright. Wouldn't say it was very good. But wouldn't say I hated it. I was at first disliking it due to the sudden events at the beginning of the book and out of nowhere slow pace again. 

Sometimes we just got bunch on pages just Meursault observing other people and it bored me a lot. I get the message behind this, but I don't like such storytellings and prefer that something actually happens like the murder in this book which kinds saved the book from getting only 2 stars. 

The murder was interesting and the character development throughout the book. At first I thought Meursault was a psychopath as he said; I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything., which is a typical psychopath behaviour. Especially the fading in with society and getting caught when it's already too late, which was the case here too. But due to the book mentioning often emotions I came to the conclusion that our protagonist was emotionally detached. He wasn't sure what he liked or not, same with his girlfriend. He was fine with either way. Sometimes as he really seem like not caring, sometimes him not being sure. I liked that part of the book. In general I prefer character based classical books than action based ones. 

I hated the fact how another girl was chasing behind a man which wasn't worth it. The girl the protagonist got was the typical; I can fix him girl. I hate those. And I hated how she KNEW, she even asked if he would say the same to another woman and when he said yes she STILL stayed with him. Stupid, stupid! 
(The whole relationship was a huge red flag)

There was also misinformation when the lawyer says that all lawyers say 'I' instead of 'him/her' to refer to the person they defend. Reason for that is, there is a written protocol and sometimes even an audio protocol and if a lawyer says 'I', he will get in immense trouble. So that wasn't true and I don't tolerate false information in any kinds of books (unless it's comedy or fantasy if also mentioned that it's made-up and not meant literal). 

Some characters were weird or mad annoying. Epecially that priest. And for weird is this scene my example; ‘I’ll leave you alone.’ He stayed where he was, behind me.
Like, what now? Staying or leaving?

And the writing style was weird sometimes too. Saying the sky is green. Yes, green not blue. I don't know what Albert Camus was trying to tell us 

Nevertheless, I think the weird and annoying characters were done on purpose as the protagonist got annoyed from them too, but I would really like to know what by green sky was meant. The main things that really bothered me was the red flag relationship and the misinformation. Except that was the book quite alright. Would say average. But would still recommend it, when someone would be searching for exactly such type of book.

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