4.16 AVERAGE

dark reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

would've been 5 had it not been for the epilogue which was a tad anticlimactic? 
nevertheless a literary masterpiece i wish i had read sooner. i found myself sympathizing with and justifying a murderer multiple times!!! 
i find that this novel does not aim to morally educate the reader, but rather to continuously make them question everything they *think* they stand for — and man did it succeed. my head was messed with from start to finish

Oh my Goddddd, this was amazing. Very slow paced and heavy it took me nearly a month to get through but it was so worth it. It is so dense with content i could read 10 pages and feel satisfied and the way it was written was in a way where I could not see any major plot points coming at all until I read them. I went into this book blind, knowing nothing about it and I honestly think that's the best way to read this book. I cried and laughed multiple times, and ended up becoming weirdly attached to the characters, which was surprising considering when this book was written and it's subject matters.
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shananananana's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 4%

I was just not in the mood 😭 but I want to pick that book againnn
challenging dark emotional slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: N/A
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Rating: 2.5/5
Finished July 30th, 2025

okay, look. I get what it was trying to say, I even understood it all in what it was trying to convey. And maybe it was the specific translation I had, and maybe the ending saved the score a little tiny bit since I was originally going to give it a straight up 2. BUT...

I could not enjoy this. I rushed to finish this because I was not a fan and wanted to read something else. The writing is loaded, by a heavy hand for sure. Every character has some form of insanity to them, it almost seems like he can't write a sane character. I was even bored most of the time, and people, as I've seen, love to claim that if you don't like it you just don't get it but I mean, what's not to get? And the deeper you get the more of a message it tries to convey to you, but it almost seems like too little, too late.

at the end of the day, I guess it just wasn't my taste. maybe I'll reread a different version in a decade or two but for now, I'm glad I got through it.

p.s. shout out to Razumikhin my goat fr, ride or die!
dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

What is a crime? What should be the punishment? It's dark, but I've fallen in love with this story. The main character does something very, very bad--a crime, you might say--and Dostoevsky gives you the disturbing privilege of not simply sympathizing but truly empathizing with him. You will feel the crime, and oh, you will feel the punishment. I recognize that that is not a necessarily enticing pitch, but I hope you hop on the Crime and Punishment train when you're up for it! I found the message genuinely profound, the writing compelling, and the story quite gripping.
dark reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Meu novo hiperfoco.

Minha cabeça não parou por um segundo durante a leitura. Provoco:

É uma fotografia da insanidade, pobreza e doença dos anos 1860, verdade. Mas fiz um paralelo com o novo século e o jargão de direita “bandido bom, é bandido morto” que dizem com convicção. Viajo na provocação?

Raskolnikov: insosso, pedante e … sim, burro. Não intelectualmente, claro, mas burro, desprovido de sagacidade.

Não torci pra ele em nenhum momento.

Vi niilismo, existencialismo muito antes de serem ideias consolidadas.

Pasmem, vi feminismo também. Estou maluca? Lebeziatnikov, o querido que fez uma pra deus ver ao desmentir Lujin e defender Sonia, sabe? Claro, feminista, mas de um jeito que muitas vezes parece cômico ou superficial. Retrato das pessoas que adotavam ideologias progressistas na época sem compreendê-las completamente. Seria o esquerdo-macho do século 19?

Enfim, acho que é a primeira review longa que escrevo - e que decido levar um tiquinho a sério.

Gostei.

Pronta para o próximo Dostoevsky.
dark reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes