A review by brooklyn1
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

adventurous 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? Yes

2.0

I am a little conflicted. If this book is about censorship, then it fails in every way. But there are prescient details about technology and its effects on the mind. I wish it removed the "authoritarian government" aspect from the book altogether because that part undercut the point. Why does the govt want to censor books? Because it keeps the population stupid and distracted and easy to control? It seems they were already heading down that path so why put in billions to trillions of dollars to speed up the process? Why does the govt want to do that? To what end? So it can remain rich? It seems like that's the most inefficient and convoluted way to secure power. The book barely spent any time on the motivations of the government, but it spent a ton of time on the ramifications of it being so hell-bent on wanting to destroy book in existence. I think the book would have been more impactful if there were no laws against books, but people had just burned most of them of their own accord so there were few left. Then the story could focus more its strong aspects such as mindless media and how that creates a lack of human connection.