Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - 1984

This book was so good. Obviously everyone knows the premise of 1984. Everyone can use the phrase "Orwellian" and have a semi-understanding of what they are actually referring to. So going into this book, I knew the base level of what I was getting myself into. A male protagonist disillusioned with a totalitarian regime. However, I was absolutely not expecting this book to be such a gripping read. A real page-turner.

I absolutely love the world-building of a totalitarian regime. It is why I loved the Handmaid's Tale so much, it was really cool to see a regime that seemed to spring out of our own society and our own history. After reading this, I realized that all the things I loved about the Handmaid's Tale were inspired by this book. Just like Winston, I wanted to know absolutely everything about the Party. Did the

Brotherhood

exist? What was the

Inner Party, what did they know, and how did they get the privileges they have

? Could

O'Brien, or Julia

be trusted? How did this regime come to be? Is the Party

lying about the wars with Eurasia and Eastasia

? Was

Big Brother

real? And, just like Winston, I was engrossed by any new information I received. I meticulously read

Goldstein's book,

accepting it as fact about the Regime. I fully accepted that

Winston and Julia were safe in Charrington's shop

and

were learning the real truth about Oceania.

"You are the dead."

was shocking. It was great. It felt like I had the rug pulled out from under me. As much as I was wary of

O'Brien

and felt that

him giving so much information to Winston so quickly was a trap

, I never expected that

Charrington and the shop was in on it.

That was insane. After this point, the book's

slow devolution into a horror novel

was both difficult to read and difficult to put down. It was truly scary. It made the reader fully understand how a person could be convinced that their very reality is changeable, just because the government says so. Every single thing in this novel came back to haunt Winston. His

dreams about O'Brien, his love for Julia, his fear of rats, his mom, all of the people in Oceania he had known, his diary, everything

. That is incredible horror and a true nightmare.

Winston being released from the ministry of love at the end of the novel was unexpected, but a perfect ending. We were able to see just how broken he was. He was nothing of his former self, be truly believed that all of his real childhood memories were false memories, and he was brought to joy throughout his day only by news of Oceania's war victories. The last line of the book, "He loved Big Brother," to me suggests that he is about to be shot and killed. He did not even get those final ten seconds of regaining dignity and individuality that he dreamed of before getting shot.

I know that this book is going to stay with me for the rest of my life. What an incredible read.

P.S. Throughout reading this book I felt I could pinpoint the exact moments that inspired Margaret Atwood to write The Handmaid's Tale. The use of the word Unperson (Unwoman, in THT), The emergence of a new society in the wake of the old one, with the war effort always in the background to encourage patriotism and limit rationing of goods. The presence of a regular scheduled catharsis time for all of the citizens to get their rage out on the "enemy" (Two Minutes Hate in 1984, Particicutions in THT). I also really think Margaret Atwood read the Appendix in 1984 and was inspired to include the Historical Notes section in the Handmaid's Tale. It's just too similar. An essay written by an academic after the events of the story that suggest that things have gone back to normal and the totalitarian regime has ended. Newspeak is no longer used, the Party is spoken of as if it is a thing of the past, free thought is free again.

This review is so long. This book is amazing. The general consensus is always about how important a book this is, and it absolutely is important. However, I think a lot more people would choose to pick it up if they knew how genuinely enthralling this book is as a piece of psychological horror.

Content Warnings

rishankl's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

1984 was a perspective-changing book. Though this book has faced many reasons for being banned, the message behind it is still powerful.

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taliare's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

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siowan's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

aude's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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dropout's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Great idea which is still relevant today. Storytelling and characters not very deep or literary. But that just clearly wasn’t the intention of the author. He prioritized the lesson this book is supposed to teach over making it pretty and that is in a way the beauty of the book how raw and ugly it is. The writing style still made it a little hard to get into it and some passages were not very interesting to read. Allover still worth reading and would clearly recommend to every adult.

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castle_samj's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I have both simultaneously and impossibly completely read this book and wholeheartedly denounced its utter existence or potential to exist.

I think I’m disappointed. I had long expected this book to contain some more SCIENCE to its -fiction, yet mostly it dealt with drama and confusing or blurring the lines of reality. I’d wager this was more intended as a political protest and warning tragedy of the existing world governments in the 1940s than a prediction of what was to come. While a lot of the meta-content has, in fact, evolved to become true, it equally mispredicted some changes, lending to its true purpose of protest.

I can not recommend reading this book. Read a synopsis or something, or read Part 2 Chapter 09 and nothing else. I’m not even sure if Orwell was antisemitic by making the ‘villain’ be Jewish (

there’s no good closure on the purpose of Goldstein other than to be the scapegoat for the opposition to the Party, and nothing other than hateful rhetoric toward him or his ideology

) but he doesn’t do aftercare for any of the awful things; you just get a tragedy.

Content Warnings

abby_can_read's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

🎧
I didn't hate this book, but I didn't really like it either. It was just a book that I read.

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