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A review by randomheart
Papillon by Henri Charrière
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
This took me a bit longer than I was expecting to get through, but wow was it a ride!
My dad isn't much of a reader, but this is a book that he's raved about to me for awhile, so I have wanted to read it for quite a long time now. I saw that it was available at my library and thought it was finally the time to give it a go, and it definitely took me on a journey.
Technically, this book is a memoir, but it reads more like a fiction novel because a lot of what happens is so wild that it's almost unbelievable. I know that there's a lot of controversy about this too so I'm not sure if it's all really true, but regardless it does make for a great story in the end that's for sure.
It's quite a long book at about 500+ pages, but it's pretty fast paced at the same time because there's A LOT that happens in this book. There are times when it does get a little repetitive (the numerous times he tries to escape) and overly descriptive for my taste, but things move at a pretty steady pace overall. It was also a bit hard to keep up with the cast of characters because there were just so many of them. It makes you think how he was able to remember everything as clearly as he did? I can barely remember what I ate the day before...
Overall, I had a good time with this book. I don't know if we'll ever truly be able to confirm that it's all true, and a lot of it was pretty unfathomable to me, but it was still a great read and I can definitely why Papillon's story stuck with my dad since he read this as a twelve year old (which is a little too young to be reading this imo but at least he had good taste).
3.5/5
My dad isn't much of a reader, but this is a book that he's raved about to me for awhile, so I have wanted to read it for quite a long time now. I saw that it was available at my library and thought it was finally the time to give it a go, and it definitely took me on a journey.
Technically, this book is a memoir, but it reads more like a fiction novel because a lot of what happens is so wild that it's almost unbelievable. I know that there's a lot of controversy about this too so I'm not sure if it's all really true, but regardless it does make for a great story in the end that's for sure.
It's quite a long book at about 500+ pages, but it's pretty fast paced at the same time because there's A LOT that happens in this book. There are times when it does get a little repetitive (the numerous times he tries to escape) and overly descriptive for my taste, but things move at a pretty steady pace overall. It was also a bit hard to keep up with the cast of characters because there were just so many of them. It makes you think how he was able to remember everything as clearly as he did? I can barely remember what I ate the day before...
Overall, I had a good time with this book. I don't know if we'll ever truly be able to confirm that it's all true, and a lot of it was pretty unfathomable to me, but it was still a great read and I can definitely why Papillon's story stuck with my dad since he read this as a twelve year old (which is a little too young to be reading this imo but at least he had good taste).
3.5/5