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haxxy's review against another edition
5.0
No spoilers.
Populatia pamantului este controlata de un supercomputer. Omenirea, sau "fratii" si "surorile" sunt injectati, o data pe luna, cu substante care ii fac docili, neviolenti si foarte turnatori, daca vedeau pe cineva suspect. Ce se intampla daca ti se scade doza, sau nu esti injectat la timp? Aflati in carte..
O carte geniala, foarte bine scrisa si bine tradusa. Se citeste usor, e plina de actiune, iar cand se termina vrei mai mult! Recomand cu caldura 10/10!
Populatia pamantului este controlata de un supercomputer. Omenirea, sau "fratii" si "surorile" sunt injectati, o data pe luna, cu substante care ii fac docili, neviolenti si foarte turnatori, daca vedeau pe cineva suspect. Ce se intampla daca ti se scade doza, sau nu esti injectat la timp? Aflati in carte..
O carte geniala, foarte bine scrisa si bine tradusa. Se citeste usor, e plina de actiune, iar cand se termina vrei mai mult! Recomand cu caldura 10/10!
daisykajsa's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
treehuggeranonymous's review against another edition
4.0
I see a lot of comparisons between this book and Huxley, which annoys me because A Brave New World is a badly written book with a good first chapter. This Perfect Day, by comparison, is a good book with many good chapters, which is compelling from start to finish.I found the ending really satisfying, especially compared to the likes of 1984.
Levin us a master in world building, and sets up a really intriguing dystopia that seems pretty plausible with the current hype of putting wifi in everything.
I wanted to give the book 5-stars, but I feel bad for even giving it 4. This Perfect Day is an enjoyable book, aside from that one scene that is so unimportant to the story that it is not at all mentioned. I get that this is a product of its time - some creepy toxic masculinity trope - but it kinda ruins a perfectly good book..
Levin us a master in world building, and sets up a really intriguing dystopia that seems pretty plausible with the current hype of putting wifi in everything.
I wanted to give the book 5-stars, but I feel bad for even giving it 4. This Perfect Day is an enjoyable book, aside from that one scene that is so unimportant to the story that it is not at all mentioned. I get that this is a product of its time - some creepy toxic masculinity trope - but it kinda ruins a perfectly good book..
bstephens0515's review
5.0
if youre a fan of brave new world or nineteen eighty four, you need to read this
vossnraven's review
5.0
I love The Giver. One of my favorite books. I read this a few years after reading The Giver for the first time, and haven't touched The Giver once since, aside from moving it into my new bookself.
I see This Perfect Day as a grown-up version of The Giver. The sameness, the control, the fear of the outside--they all translate. Even the main character with a single genetic 'flaw' connects the two. But, as he tended to do, Ira Levin made you worry. Reading the book a little too late at night can easily make you nervous, jumpy, and generally on edge. Which is what Levin was known for, in all of his dystopian works.
What does bother me? A single scene. A rape scene between the main romantic players. As with other fiction in the era, men couldn't be men if they had a romantic sexual encounter. Don't let it turn you off of reading an otherwise fantastic book, one of my all-time favorites.
I see This Perfect Day as a grown-up version of The Giver. The sameness, the control, the fear of the outside--they all translate. Even the main character with a single genetic 'flaw' connects the two. But, as he tended to do, Ira Levin made you worry. Reading the book a little too late at night can easily make you nervous, jumpy, and generally on edge. Which is what Levin was known for, in all of his dystopian works.
What does bother me? A single scene. A rape scene between the main romantic players. As with other fiction in the era, men couldn't be men if they had a romantic sexual encounter. Don't let it turn you off of reading an otherwise fantastic book, one of my all-time favorites.
heather01602to60660's review against another edition
3.0
This was another mixed bag for me. There were things I really enjoyed in reading this novel, things that bothered me greatly, and things in the writing style that were jarring.
I enjoy good dystopian novels, and dread bad ones (you know, where the world is run by evil overlords but no one explains how they got into that point, you just have to buy it and accept it's all bad). I enjoyed how Levin really highlighted that there were both good and bad parts to the "perfect" society of the future, and found the main character's growth over time in how he viewed it helped raise a lot of questions that there weren't easy answer for, and Levin really made very little attempt to create those answers.
The gender issues were a problem for me, and while I understand that one has to consider the time at which a novel was written, I found it disheartening that in imagining a future as a blank slate, the gender relationships were still marred in decidedly out of date mores. I've only scanned a few reviews on the main page of this book and am relieved I wasn't the only person totally jarred by the rape-leading-to-love-for-attacker concept.
As for the writing, I found some of the jumps in time/topic to be abrupt and confusing as I read along. I'm not sure if something was lost in the formatting on the Kindle that might have helped (extra line breaks between paragraphs or whatever) clear it up, but sometimes I'd have to double check to make sure I hadn't accidentally tapped ahead two pages instead of one as the shifts came out of the blue.
I'd recommend this book to someone who likes the genre, because it does get one thinking as good anti-Utopian works will do, but not without some hesitation, esp. for younger readers or those who need a clear message from the author on how they should feel when reading it.
I enjoy good dystopian novels, and dread bad ones (you know, where the world is run by evil overlords but no one explains how they got into that point, you just have to buy it and accept it's all bad). I enjoyed how Levin really highlighted that there were both good and bad parts to the "perfect" society of the future, and found the main character's growth over time in how he viewed it helped raise a lot of questions that there weren't easy answer for, and Levin really made very little attempt to create those answers.
The gender issues were a problem for me, and while I understand that one has to consider the time at which a novel was written, I found it disheartening that in imagining a future as a blank slate, the gender relationships were still marred in decidedly out of date mores. I've only scanned a few reviews on the main page of this book and am relieved I wasn't the only person totally jarred by the rape-leading-to-love-for-attacker concept.
As for the writing, I found some of the jumps in time/topic to be abrupt and confusing as I read along. I'm not sure if something was lost in the formatting on the Kindle that might have helped (extra line breaks between paragraphs or whatever) clear it up, but sometimes I'd have to double check to make sure I hadn't accidentally tapped ahead two pages instead of one as the shifts came out of the blue.
I'd recommend this book to someone who likes the genre, because it does get one thinking as good anti-Utopian works will do, but not without some hesitation, esp. for younger readers or those who need a clear message from the author on how they should feel when reading it.
readingjas's review
2.0
I wanted to love this book. Dystopian futures are always appealing to me, and this had a very promising start. Excellent world building and a protagonist questioning everything about his world and trying to find a way to change it.
Ultimately though, Chip is a very boring character. The writing is very dry. There is no subtlety in the writing, it's like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer - "Russia (communism) bad, USA (freedom and capitalism) good."
But what really got me (and here is a spoiler in case you want to stop reading......now).....
WTF is with the rape scene! I know this was written in the 70's, but seriously?! Because raping a woman you've essentially kidnapped generally leads to her falling in love with you and saying 'hey, don't worry about it, it's natural'. And after the rape, it's never mentioned again, she marries him, has his kid, and becomes a nagging housewife. Again, WTF.
This had so much potential. Nowhere near the caliber of 1984 or Brave New World though.
Ultimately though, Chip is a very boring character. The writing is very dry. There is no subtlety in the writing, it's like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer - "Russia (communism) bad, USA (freedom and capitalism) good."
But what really got me (and here is a spoiler in case you want to stop reading......now).....
WTF is with the rape scene! I know this was written in the 70's, but seriously?! Because raping a woman you've essentially kidnapped generally leads to her falling in love with you and saying 'hey, don't worry about it, it's natural'. And after the rape, it's never mentioned again, she marries him, has his kid, and becomes a nagging housewife. Again, WTF.
This had so much potential. Nowhere near the caliber of 1984 or Brave New World though.