sugars 's review for:

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

5.0

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This is such a thought provoking book and also the first Dostoyevsky book I have ever finished (though not my introduction to his work).

Raskolnikov is such a fascinanting character (although I like to joke that he is a loser sometimes (maybe he is)). I could find bits and pieces of him in me, one for example is how much mental gymnastic and emotional turmoil I go through when I try to justify my own action, or how our guilty conscience can control us and drive us to insanity.

A character that I admire is Sonya, how she was still so full of compassion, love, and hope in spite of all the suffering she went through throughout the story. I also love that Sonya is basically potrayed as a saint despite the nature of her work (prostitution).

But I think the best character here is Razumikhin. I actually think it’s amusing that he seemed to be the only character who still managed to be mentally stable despite enduring a similar living condition with most of the characters (in the slums of St Petersburg). It's truly admirable how he stood by Raskolnikov as he got crazier and crazier because I would have given up or gone crazy too lol

Admittedly it was hard to get through the beginning at first because I had not finished/read a book since last year and the pacing of the book is slow (although the whole story, excluding the epilogue, took place over the course of about a week or so), but I persevered and pushed throught and eventually I started devouring the book!!

Albeit there are some parts that felt draggy (maybe it's just me).

Sometimes the characters would talk endlessly, it felt so long-winded, and I would ask myself, ‘where are they going with this?', but I think the key is just to push through and then eventually I would realize where they were leading the conversation to (admittedly still confusing sometimes).

Definitely is not the last book of Dostoyevsky I will read, and would suggest everyone to read it!!