Book Review - Animal Farm

Animal Farm 

George Orwell 

7 stars
102 pages
Classic, Satire, Communism,

This is a one hour read or a three hour audiobook. My third time reading this novel and I am sure that I will reread it again in the future. It is perfect to get out of a reading slump or to cure a book hangover.
This novel should be a mandatory read for anyone, anywhere. There are so many layers of messages built into so few pages. It is so sad and sarcastic, and so very true. I had to read this in high school and it was one of the few novels that I enjoyed studying. There are no great leaps in logic to understand the symbolism or meaning behind it, its all laid out in a clear orderly fashion : good beginnings do not always mean a good end, good intentions often go astray, The power of fear. the power of an ignorant majority, the ability of a few to rule over the many through manipulation. While Orwell's message was strongly anti-communist it also displays the flaws of any other system, capitalism included.

For the first time I watched the cartoon as well, I found it to be very much along the lines of Watership Down, maybe not the best for a children's movie even though I am sure many kids watched it because it is a cartoon - although I find that many children's movies can be dark and intense, as kids we simply overlook the messages - They changed the ending of the comic so that it was different from the book and I wasn't happy with that so 3/5 stars for that.

This novel is great for book discussions! Leave a comment below if you have read this (let me know what you thought!) or if you plan on reading it.