Title: Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

Recommendation: Strongly Recommend ; Not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely blew out of the water. A read that I will treasure.

Rating/Grade:  E -> Exceeds Expectations. 8/10

Synopsis: Set in the future, where firemen create fires instead of preventing them, Guy Montag can’t help his feeling of something wrong in the way he lives. After meeting Clarisse things take a turn to a darker side. 

Comments: The development of Montag is quite intriguing. This book is quite fantastic. I enjoyed it a lot, and was actually quite taken aback a few times, forgetting that this book was written almost 60 years ago. The fact that Ray Bradbury could tunnel vision into the future the way he had is quite remarkable, and frankly almost chilling. He portrays the ideal that we, as a group, would consciously choose to be “entertained” by the media instead of picking up a book and exploring it. Sound like society today? I think so. 

The way society is written to be so apathetic toward everything, to be so consumed by their consumerism they don’t even realize was so… heart-wrenching for me to read. I didn’t necessarily feel that this booked was based on the ideal of censorship, but instead what we as a group choose to consume. I find that this book portrays where we are as a society almost too accurately, it’s quite frightening. Too often do you hear people brag about not reading, as if books are truly a evil. People rather go “fast” and not “think” but be told, just be entertained. Just to have fun, and do nothing, be nothing. So lost in that fun that they have completely lost themselves. What I enjoyed was how all the characters aside from the few, were literally void beings. They cared for nothing, only to read their scripts in front of their wall-to-wall screens, with the fake characters who would respond to them with a script, giving them a sense of importance that they themselves diminished. It was… wow. Really powerful. This book is great, truly great. 

The only down faults I felt were, of course, being born and alive in an era that is quick and fast, I felt that the book was just a little too short. I wanted more of Clarisse, hear more of what she had to say but unfortunately she didn't make it far. This was written beautifully, and I do recommend it.