1984 by George Orwell (Review)

Genre: Classic
Released: 1949
272 pages

About the Book:

The year 1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever. 1984 is still the great modern classic of "negative utopia"—a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny the novel's hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

  

My Rating & Thoughts:    ⭐⭐

I don't get why this is such a classic, and I understand why it is on some banned books list. I was following along well with what was being described and could picture the setting, but then once Winston began reading the book from for the opposing worldview, I checked out. I wasn't surprised that Julia fell asleep, I would have too. From this point on the story seems to get stranger and stranger. I thought Winston had a backbone at the beginning, but then he became a mouse and was just there. Bending to their will and never standing up for what he believed. It is a bit frightening to think that this was written in 1949 and there is a number of items described that could be relevant to today such as countries fighting for domination, trying to rewrite history, screens watching and listening in, etc. I was very uncomfortable with the sexuality described at times, and a particular torture scene was torture to read. I can finally mark this off my classics I felt I need to read and now understand completely where the term big brother originated from, but I have no desire to ever read this again and will not recommend.

(I purchased my copy of this book; opinions expressed 

in this review are my honest opinion and completely my own.)