Reviews with content warning for War - 1984

Reviews tagging 'War'

1984 by George Orwell

519 reviews

torismazarine's review against another edition

5.0

dark reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

ravensandlace's review against another edition

2.0

challenging dark informative slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Title: 1984

Author: George Orwell

Genre: Adult Dystopia

Format: my own paperback book

Star Rating: 2.5 stars

tw: misogyny, antisemitism, war, parental death, assault, burning, torture, mind control

So, I read this book back in high school, over 10 years ago. I know, I am old. I remember thinking “Oh this is such a good book!” I also felt really proud of myself for reading an “adult” book. Up until that point, I had normally read young adult books. I found a beautiful paperback edition, while I was thrift shopping of course, and thought “Great! I’ll give this another go and see if it holds up!”

Ugh. This book sucked and I am so disappointed that I did not like it the second time around. Sure, the message was good. Big Brother is always watching, etc, etc. It’s a metaphor for the government and how if it goes left unchecked, bad things will happen. I get that. My problem was with the main character, Winston, and the ending. I’ll explain both.

Winston is the absolute whiniest main character I’ve ever read about and I read Shadow and Bone (if you all have read that book, you know who I’m talking about). He wanted to kill a woman because he was attracted to her. Who does that? In fact, he dislikes all women and had nasty things to say about them. He would constantly shit on women because they used their feminine wiles to get people to join some sort of group. He also had such an ego about him that was completely undeserved. He knew he wasn’t a catch but at the same time, still acted like he was better than everyone just because he didn’t think like the others.

The ending made me so mad. This is going to be a spoiler of sorts so read this next paragraph if you don’t care about spoilers or if you have already read the book. We were made to root for Winston, fighting against the Party. That things were going to go well for the Rebellion and that maybe we would see the Party getting taken down. But no. Winson learns to love the party and therefore loves Big Brother due to mind control. I don’t remember if I liked the ending or not when I read it in high school. I really just remember being confused. But now, I’m just mad. Thank god I only spent like one dollar on this book.

Overall, I believe this is an important book about government control. But don’t rely on Winston to be an example of how to defeat said government control. He is nothing but a whiny, misogynistic wuss. I still recommend this book. Just be prepared to be mad about the ending and about Winston.

Content Warnings

kibbles15's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The last time I read this book, I gave the book 1 star. I don't remember my reasoning, but I think it had something to do with the intense descriptions of torture in the last part of the book. Now that I am older, I appreciate this book for what it is. It is a well written (disturbing) book. I would recommend a person read the book at least once in their lives. That being said, I still only give the book 3 stars because the plot moves very slowly and is very explanatory.

Content Warnings

francescazksxmc's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional tense fast-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: Complicated

Content Warnings

mini_malist's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

pott's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Winston is a bitch ass motherfucker L + ratio haha

imagine getting yourself fucked over so bad what a fucking loser

I borrowed this from my teacher and read it in about a week or two. The book's concept really captivated me and it also being a classic, I knew I had to give it a read. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of dystopias, 1984 has such an interesting world built around it that even I got my fair share of enjoyment out of it. I found myself sitting the book in hand just reading for hours. My only critique would be that

the *book* sequence could have been cut a little shorter. It might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I absolutely can not stand such long explanations of things. Especially since it all could've been expressed within a page or two. To me, the *book* sequence was just laying down obvious facts and treating it as this huge revelation. I had to dig myself an audio book version to get through it. And that too, was great misery to me even in 1.75x speed.

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the story.

What surprised me though, was when I was shocked to learn Winston was a huge misogynist. Of course, this is a book from 1949. What else could I have expected, you may ask. And you are right. That was my mistake and I will learn to think better in the future. Either way, I quite honestly started to want dreadful things to happen to him, as one would when they come across someone of this level. Reasonably, he was a motherless, never felt the love of a woman idiotic little -dipshit in my eyes. Absolute fucking wanker. And well... I was right. That's what he was. His mother- no his whole family was gone. I started to understand him, yet could not redeem him in my eyes just because of a sob story. Regardless, he did get some character development after getting a girlfriend. (common case) And I did realize that he in fact is not the worst of the worst.

I can not say, that I like Winston, but I can respect his growth.

Maybe he's not so bad. I would like to apologize for wishing bad on him.

Content Warnings

manel_'s review against another edition

5.0

dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

In the context of the author's actions, some parts are genuinely concerning and a major turn off.
Having read it without notion of this was however 'enjoyable' and the meaning I took from it was a severely flawed character given his circumstances (and not the self insert it actually is).

Content Warnings

tupsukorva's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

lovebexdeath's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 19%

As much as I wanted to get through this just to say I actually read a classic in my free time, I just couldn't. I feel like once you're over 50 pages in, a book should be engaging, if not in its plot then at least in its characters or concept. While the concept is really intriguing, as I love dystopian lit, Winston as a main character is about as flat a glass of stale tap water. Add in his blatant hatred for women and it's painfully obvious this book is a product of its time. Maybe that's just a symptom of me trying to read this in 2022, nearly 75 years after it was initially published- God knows I couldn't even get through the first chapter of Lord of the Rings. But at the end of the day I just had no interest in continuing through pages upon pages of lengthy descriptions, intense yet vague world building, and casual sexism. It's just not for me.

Content Warnings

ellythequeen's review against another edition

3.0

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Firstly, this book is overrated. I'm not saying it's bad by any means, it's just not as insightful as one would expect. I'm must warn you this book is disturbing.

Content Warnings

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