tiffanywang29 's review for:

Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder

3.0

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I wish I could say this book made it so much more interesting to learn about the history of philosophy. While of course it did convince me to pick it up and read it (rather than just ignoring it had it been a large textbook), looking back I realize I haven't really retained much information. The first half was jam packed with information rather than Sophie's storyline and I found myself trying to blow through the information (AKA the real, real "plot" of the story) in order to just get to the next section. Sophie herself, at least in the first half was only used as clarification for the teachings she/we learned. I found the writing to be very childish at first, but it definitely improved as Sophie's story took off. It was interesting to see how science, religion, and art all fit into the broad grasp of philosophy. Though I may not be able to remember much of the information in this book, I do applaud its efforts in drawing readers who may not be interested in picking up a textbook. If you truly want to learn about the history of philosophy through this book, I would recommend finding a week or so where you are not busy and can sit down, maybe take some notes, and really focus on the teachings.