A review by jorwilsch
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

3.0

I only read this because I’m on a quest to read all the unread books in my house. This is one from high school that I never read. I kept feeling like I had read the book and upon some Wikipedia searching discovered some interesting facts: 1) Robinson Crusoe is considered the first English novel and 2) lots of novels were published after that followed the same castaway plot and are now called Robinsonian novels, the most famous one of which is Swiss Family Robinson. Then I remembered that we watched the movie Swiss Family Robinson instead of reading Robinson Crusoe in high school- ha!

I do enjoy a castaway, survival story (love Hatchet) but this was kinda meh to me. My version included reviews from Poe, Woolf, and Thoreau at the end that all basically said that the writing is subpar but people loved it so thank you Defoe for launching the novel. I agree and would recommend skipping unless you’re a nerd and want to have read the first English novel.

A final note, I saw a lot of reviews bashing the book for having racist content and saying that we shouldn’t be reading this anymore. I kinda disagree. It was published in 1719 and I think it’s important to understand the viewpoints of the general public from different times.

Thus ends my longest review ever and for a 3 star book I’d recommend skipping.