A review by dullhilarity
Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin

I definitely enjoyed this book. It's one of my life's goals to read everything that Darwin has written because evolution fascinates me. I liked the way Darwin compared similarities of different animals together, and my favourite chapter was definitely the one where he talked about going to the Galapagos islands. And, yes, I can confirm, he did try to ride on a giant tortoise. It was thoroughly interesting, and  some of the things said felt like the roots of theories that would lead into On the Origin, so it was nice to see that. Reading this has also made me want to re-read that book, as it's been a while since I did.

I can't write this review without talking about the racist parts in this book. I thought this would be the case, because this is a 19th century journal about a privileged white man going around the world. When talking classics, we use the phrase "product of its time" and I definitely think this should be applied when talking about this book. Darwin refers to people as "savages" and what I believed was a mixed race person as a "mixed breed", but based on the time it was written, I expected this unfortunately. 

Overall, if you're interested in reading Darwin I would recommend reading this either before or after On the Origin as it is interesting, however be aware of the racism in it.