4.16 AVERAGE


A masterpiece, grasped me at its every stage and flowed originally yet so naturally

Dostoyevsky writes dialogue utterly enigmatically, with such an energy which carries every facet of his rambling philosophical toil embodied through the frictional interaction of its characters, connected like a nervous system in the city of his novel. Each person is defined by their environment, every person; worn down by poverty, stiffened by gentrification, ignorant to their determinism and struggling to speak a new word; Raskolnikov stands among them as the main vessel for such a journey, and he is foiled and covered in every which way by everyone he ever interacts with

I’m not fully sold on every way the book goes about its themes admittedly. I feel Dostoevsky places too much importance on the necessity of suffering for example, perhaps offers too much lenience to the justice system in the interest of prioritising the messaging towards the perseverance of the individual. That being said, that theme does indeed land very well, and at plenty other points he shows quite sufficient commentary on the malformed nature of his society. He’s also not nearly as bad with women as other works from his time and before can be, thought not perfect either. I do think he goes a bit far with what he does with Lebezyatikov in that regard though
challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Good plot! However, it was way too long. There was sometimes too much going on in the book; some parts could have been shorter, but I loved analyzing the story and the complex characters. I felt like the epilogue was unnecessary, and the book should’ve just ended at part 6.

4,75/5✨️
reflective
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
adventurous challenging dark mysterious
challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

“ if you you keep talking big nonsense you will get to sense “ “ if you’re going to give me big nonsense better make it your own big nonsense, and i’ll kiss you for it. talk nonsense in your own way. that’s almost better than talking sense in somebody else’s” my very beloved razumikhin was with no doubt my favorite character the way he stuck for raskolnikov and his family and the way he went and searched for those good stuff raskolnikov did. raskolnikov was very lucky to have him as a bestfriend even though he tells himself he doesn’t see him that way.

i loved raskolnikov i hated raskolnikov i related to raskolnikov. this book morally challenged me and left me staring at a blank wall multiple times, questioning.
i think everyone should read this at some point of their lives.