Customer Comments

Great, classic dystopia read. I'm not one to get all into the symbolism of books and behind the time period and such. I just enjoy stories for what they are. The copy that I read was a 50th anniversary edition that had some additional comments at the end about the symbolism and whatnot. They were interesting, but just that. I won't give a synopsis of the book because I'm sure lots of people have done that before me. I think the story was well done and fairly easy to follow. Some of the dialogue was confusing at times between multiple characters, but easily figured out. This book can easily be read without knowing the background of the time period it was written in, and without understanding the symbolism woven throughout the pages. Great story.

I listened to this book as an audio book, so my experience may be different than others'. This book was more morbid than I was bargaining for. I listened to Sebold's other two books; Lucky and The Lovely Bones. I guess I realized when listening to her other books that Sebold has a special way of writing that is a bit morbid than I'm used to, but she gets into the mind of her main characters in a unique way. However, in this book the morbidity came on more so than I was expecting or wanted. Sebold's writing was very personal, as usual, which made for a great in-depth perception. However, the main character was a generation older than myself, which I think was part of my dislike for the book. Also, the switch from present day to flashbacks and back came and went very quickly and too fluidly, I got confused with this a lot. This may have been because I was listening and not reading and thus able to see page breaks, if they were there. As for the ending, which I'm sure a lot of people are frustrated with...it was going to happen. As much as I like things being spelled out for me, this ending left vaguely hanging was fine with me. Not something I'd read again nor recommend to other people. Sebold's other two books were better, more interesting reads, in my opinion.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I can't believe I never read it before! I love utopia/dystopia books and this is a great one. For those who don't know, this is a futuristic look at society from a 1932 perspective. It was interesting because since computers were unheard of in the 1930s, there weren't any in Huxley's *future* but he was still able to make a great dystpoia book. It really got me thinking about happiness and what makes people happy and content. Also, about all the complaining about little things that people do on a daily basis. I recommend this book to anyone who has an open mind and is looking to think outside the box a little. I only gave it 4 stars because toward the end, Huxley was wrapping up all of the political sides and reasons behind things and I got lost and wanted to skip sections of it. It became confusing between which of the characters was saying which part and why. However, it all tied together nicely, tragically, in the end. An excellent read!