Reviews with content warning for Violence - Treasure Island

I cheated a bit on this - unintentionally though. I was on a long haul flight, thought "I'd like to listen to an audiobook", found an Audible copy of this on the entertainment system and hit play. Never listened to an audible book before. Discovered that this one was basically like a play, with different actors playing different characters, and only occasionally reading the (non-speaking) text of the actual book.

Even so, I was pretty engaged by it. Got to about the 3/4 mark when my flight landed, so finished it in a more traditional format. Unsurprisingly, the prose was a fair bit different to what I had been listening to.

Anyway, long story short (haha) I feel like I have and yet haven't read this, but I'm adding it as read anyway. I can see why it was considered a classic. I enjoyed it immensely.

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jakessrn's review

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.0

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books_and_fairy_lights's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.75

From Stevenson I had read Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which I loved, and I had very high hopes and expectations for Treasure Island. I think I was a little disappointed?
It was really good. It was a bit of a weird reading experience because while I was taken into the story when reading, it stopped whenever I closed the book and so I went some long stretches of time before keeping on reading. That being said, it is a great story of pirates and adventure and you can definitely see of it's a classic and how it really defined the genre. It's an agreeable read, with the right amount of suspense and adventure and plot twists. It's quite masterfully written. Reading it nowadays, some parts were a little harder to follow with all the sea/boat vocab and the accents and ways of speaking, but it does also really contribute to the reading experience and the atmosphere of the book.
I don't think I'll read it again, but I'm glad to have checked it off my to read list of classics 🧭

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