A review by zakcebulski
Jaws by Peter Benchley

adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5


You know in school when teachers always talk shit about movies "oh the book is always better than the movie"?
This book... Jaws is absolutely the exception.
If I read this book in 1974 upon release I don't know that I would have been able to stomach reading this shit.
Every single character is some level of slimey, or unlikable. I thought the reviews were being funny when they said that they were eventually rooting for the shark. But, holy shit, they were not. I could not stand any of the characters, and I think that that shows what a fucking mastermind Spielberg and Gottlieb are for taking all of these shitty ass characters and making a truly remarkable adaptation of this book.

Why is Hooper such an asshole "shit-don't-stink" type in this book?
Why was there a fucking affair between Ellen Brody and Hooper? Why was this shoehorned in?
I mean this with every single fiber of my being that if this book was 70 pages long and the only mentions of land were when the shark attacked, this book would be so much better.

I don't think that characterization matters when the characterization is fucking garbage.
Like, Ellen is an unsatisfied housewife who opts to have an affair, and then we are supposed to turn around and be so on her side when Brody wants to go risk his life to kill the shark? Fuck off. What an annoying ass character.
That drunk dinner scene was one of the most annoying scenes I have read recently. Fucking hell. And then, the whole affair was in the book for what reason? Who fucking knows. It was just there to I guess add background to Ellen and Hooper and increase tension between Hooper and Brody... But, it ultimately goes nowhere when Ellen realizes that she actually loves her husband and her tryst was for nothing. Great, this would have been such an awesome revelation with some nuance into Brody and Ellen's marriage if either character were not a fucking slog to read.


Quint was colored in to be an animal abuser in the worst way possible, for the sport of torture under the guise of being a weathered sea captain and fisherman. But, in reality it just makes him so hard to care about.
Brody is an uncertain, whiny and stymied at every turn cop who can't do fucking anything and when he does he keeps falling back on him trying to do right.

Boy oh boy can we talk about the lack of depth in subplots? Why is there a whole mafia thing that goes exactly.... nowhere? In the movie the mayor is just worried about the town going under because of the risk of closing beaches... Why can that not be in the book? Instead we have a whole ass undercooked fucking mafia subplot that makes things unnecessarily complicated.
And even the main plot- hunting a giant fucking shark- is boring as shit. Yes, the attacks are intensely written, which is great. But, when the three are on the Orca it is so fucking boring to read. Hooper dying by forcing himself to go in a shark cage? Hilarious. Fucking moron.
Quint going out not unlike fucking Ahab was cool. But, goddamn what a drag to read. I wish that the tension and thriller tone that Benchley had during the individual shark attacks translated over to the "final battle".

I was absolutely rooting for the shark throughout this book. Fuck these melodramatic ass underdeveloped ass whiny ass complaining about everything ass characters.
The only reason that this book gets a 1 star is because it served as the basis for the movie adaptation which holy fucking hell, there is no goddamn competition between this book and the movie. That, and the research that Benchley put in to reading about sharks. 
This book review could have easily devolved in to a hyping up of Steven Spielberg and Carl Gottlieb and honestly it would have been more worth my time. 
I don't even have anything else to say.
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