Reviews

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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sms8493's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-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

2.75

reading_bunny's review against another edition

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3.0

My Ratings:
Writing: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Favourite Quote:
"When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others; That is what the world calls romance"
- Lord Henry

Review/general thoughts:
The characters were interesting as one could argue that Lord Henry is the one at fault for Dorian's demise as his character (as far as I was able to interpret) is a representation of the misogynistic and hedonistic ideals of the society of the time, and it was under his influence that Dorian drew more and more into the 'cruelty of men'

The gay 'subtext' (which is really just blatantly text even in the censored version) with Basil was both delightful and heartbreaking to read. He speaks very highly of Dorian as his friend, muse, and the object of his affections and the clear heartbreak when he confesses his feelings towards Dorian and realizes (or I suppose accepts) that they will never be reciprocated makes what happened soon after more impactful and makes you hate Dorian just that little bit more.

One of my biggest issues with this book, is the pros itself and the way that it is written. I found myself skimming many of the pages, especially relating to history or the pages on pages of historical and literary remarks. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy them, I personally think that it was a very clever way to not only foreshadow the ending of the book, but also to portray how Dorian's fear and paranoia developed and worsened throughout his life as he kept coming back to deadly and dark historical moments and related to them or thought of himself as one of the characters.

Overall the book was very enjoyable, even if I did find myself skimming a few pages and having to re-read some parts because of the verbiage used, I would read this again in the future.

I have owned this book for a while and I have been wanting to read it for nearly double that length and I had put it off because I knew I would enjoy it greatly and I'm happy to say that I know myself very well. For full transparency though the thing that finally kicked me into gear to read this book was that I was going to use a section of it for a fanfiction and didn't want to spoil the ending for myself (i knew what happened but didn't know the lead up) and I also wanted enough knowledge on it to be able to properly write a characters (my) thoughts on certain themes of the book and have them go on a little (but well informed) rant.
I very much enjoyed this book, the writing was at times hard to bear but overall it was a delightful read.

rainbowghostowl's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

jenniferthor's review against another edition

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4.25

dorian is a character you both admire and dislike. i would say he is an unreliable narrator.
i loved the thing about the painting (does it really change or is it all in dorians head?) .. and i do think oscar wilde did a great job with the ending !