3.9 AVERAGE

adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

More interesting as an anthropological artifact than a novel. Extremely steeped in the imperialist attitudes of the late 19th century. Racist caricatures, the wanton slaughter of a wide variety of animals (mirroring the way these men's real-life counterparts behaved), and on top of that there's barely any plot. I've enjoyed the other Verne novels I've read much more than this one.

not a bad book. I didn't like it nearly so much as some of his other works, but it was still good.

The thing that most surprised me about the book, though, was the amount of casual racism. None of it is purposely malicious, and really, it just reflects the period, but it was still occasionally shocking to modern sensibilities.

Jules Verne is a god! If I can be a writer, I want to be like him. No one else. I've read five of his books and they all blew me away.

The Mysterious Island is the ultimate Jules Verne's masterpiece. It tells about five castaways in an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, driven by a storm after they fled from the then raging Civil War in the US (1860s). For survival, they learn to be farmers, hunters, masons, sailors, potters, chemists, physicists, and various of professions you could imagine.

Yes, this might sounds like Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Doyle's The Lost World and other similar stories, but Verne's description is more....complete, adventurous, imaginative, rich with interesting details (hell, he can even make the process of making pottery and iron tools sounds rather fascinating). Plus, Verne's books are classic science fictions with amazing grand visions. Yeah yeah, there's that HG Wells guy, but he's nothing compared with Verne, believe me.

The ending (which explains why the island is mysterious) is superb and kinda shocking to me. If you're an avid Jules Verne's reader, you'll know what I mean. Hint: character cross-over.
adventurous slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

After I was totally entertained and entirely intrigued by the movie "Journey to the Mysterious Island", I downloaded and started reading this Jules Verne novel I'd never heard of before. I'm at 43%, and I am enthralled!

Update: Finished this evening. Totally awesome. Those were five smart, hardworking, moral, God-fearing, and persevering men!

I liked how this tied together many of Verne's other works. It was neat how all of the obstacles the group encountered were overcome with MacGyver like ingenuity (or better). Definitely a recommendation for anyone that has read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and the Children of Captain Grant.

I'd give this three and a half stars if I could; Verne has a knack for mixing just enough fact into his fiction to convince you it could be real, but the flip side is that the fact is often so ... boring. Paragraph upon paragraph describing how castaways made some chemical or another is probably interesting for survivalists, but I am not one of those by nature. While Verne eschews the method by which many authors of castaway stories save their protagonists -- wait! what's that on the shore? the boat, and it still has all of our supplies in it! -- he creates his own deus ex machina by which to ensure the perpetuation of the story (Word to the wise: if you've read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, you'll be able to guess the mystery of The Mysterious Island is long before the story's climax and denouement.)

Although I've never read Verne in the original French, some of the wording seems just a little off; given his level of skill, I'm pretty sure that's a result of the translation. Still, I enjoyed it enough to stay up way too late last night reading it, and I polished it off this afternoon.

2.5 ✨

7/10