Book Review: Lord of the Flies

Title: Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Series: N/A
Reread Count: 2

Look at that, I actually decided to complete my summer reading assignment a whole week before it is due. I am so on top of things and I didn't procrastinate at all. Not like my younger brother, who still hasn't finished his assignment! (Although, to be fair, he did start like a week ago... so he might be more on top of things than I am...) Obviously the fact that this was for a school assignment means that my view of the book is slightly negative because I had to focus on every single little detail and didn't get to enjoy the story (if one can enjoy this story, in my opinion it's kind of grim...). Fun fact, I have read this book twice, and both times have been for school as I did an entire unit on this book about 4 years ago.

Long story short, this book is about a group of preteen/younger children who crash-land on an island in the middle of nowhere. And then have to try and survive. Which, as you can probably predict, goes wonderfully because at 12 everyone is fully prepared to survive on a random island while being responsible for a ton of other people. Totally normal. But one of my favorite things about this book is actually how responsible and intelligent and calm some of these boys are. If I crash on an island, 2 days (minimum) will be spent freaking out because I crashed on an island. I'm not going to be thinking about making a fire or hunting for food, much less coming up with all these rules and regulations and structures...

I loved how this book approached the ideas of power struggles and self-government and how self-interest can overrule the greater needs of an entire group because power. And instead of demonstrating this with a bunch of adults, Golding uses children which really just shows how deeply imbedded some of these instincts/habits are and how power struggles can turn deadly even with a bunch of preteens. It reveals the darker side of human nature which is always interesting to read about.

LIKES:
+ The deeper meanings/truths behind the writing are really thought-provoking, and it makes you question human nature in a way and why we are so obsessed with obtaining power and having it right now.
+ The message about power struggles and self-government can be translated into our lives today, but is even more obvious/shocking because in this case it is played out by children, showing just how deep that desire for power is.
+ Even though Ralph and Jack seemed like the main-ish characters, I really liked that side characters like Piggy and Simon still were developed and played pretty large parts in the story.
+ I have to admit, I really liked Piggy. He was treated really poorly by everybody else but still tried to help out with what he could.

DISLIKES:
- My main complaint was the almost disjointed style of writing, I kept having to re-read because it felt like I was missing pages. It made it a lot harder to read and keep up the flow of everything.
- I really didn't like Jack. At all.

I will say, 4 years later I have a new appreciation for this book and actually like it a lot more than I originally did. I think some of the deeper meanings/truths went over my head and I was just too young to understand the message behind the writing. I hated it when I was younger, but I'm actually happy that I have a copy now!

See this review on Goodreads.