A review by ihateketchup
The Annotated Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Alfred Appel

challenging dark emotional informative slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book needs to be understood better by our generation, the author wrote this book so that we could easily identify people like Humbert. It is sad that a lot of people took this as a love story, it is not a love story in the slightest. This book is a psychological thriller that you find yourself interested in due to the narrator not being reliable, Humbert will contradict himself throughout the book, and you catch yourself being manipulated by Humbert as you are reading the book, the ability to write like that is incredibly impressive. Humbert is such a horrible character, the fact that you can find him trying to manipulate you after telling you all the disgusting things he did is a strange and scary feeling. This book shows you how easy it is for these people to get away with things like this, and shows how to spot them without even specifically saying it. The way the character of Dolores changes so quickly and abruptly makes it so we the readers, are unable to tell whether she changes due to puberty, age, her realizing she is being abused, Humbert being an unreliable narrator, or a mix of them. Having the readers question the authenticity and truthfulness of a fictional story is a rare thing to do.  There are so many hidden messages and double innuendos in the way Humbert writes, that having the annotations helps you truly appreciate the amount of dedication that was put into this book. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings