Animal Farm
I’m sure we’ve all heard of it and seen the good and the bad reviews.
Well, here’s mine. Just be warned, there will be spoilers in this article.
Why Animal Farm?
At a young age, I had seen Animal Farm as scary. One day, I was watching the film with my family and was too creeped out to the point that I decided, “I AM NEVER READING ANIMAL FARM.” Well flash forward some years, I was required to read it for an English class. Let me tell ya’, I was NOT excited. But honestly after reading at an age that I can comprehend the story more in, it was marvelous. The plot, the story, the historical references, and amazingly, there were NO unnecessary parts or rushed plot points. Everything had its clear effect. It was just so much better than most books I’ve been reading nowadays that sometimes can just feel like a jumble of words. 🙁 Best of all, this book was super short so it was only like a 3 hour read!
Characters:
Let’s talk, Characters
In this short book, there was surprisingly a lot of characters. There was Mr. Jones the farmer and all the different animals in the story, even the most insignificant, the cat, was noted. There was a lot of development for the main characters and it almost felt like I was along the journey of Animal Farm with them. In a few pages, I was able to figure out the different personalities including who was the hard worker, the senior, the lazy, etc. Some of my favorite characters personally were Boxer and Benjamin, they had likeable personalities. Although, it was a bit weird that from the start the animals could speak, it was definitely a crucial point to include so the pigs were able to form their leadership. I just felt as if we didn’t get enough time for Snowball the pig to develop as a character as he was chased out to early.
I really liked Napoleon’s character and felt he was perfect for his role from the start. Him becoming a dictator and using aggression. My overall score for characters, 9/10
Plot
The plot was great, but at some points it didn’t feel paced well. I felt like the revolution of the animals against Jones was too quick and the way Snowball was rushed out was too fast as well. But, the other points were pretty detail and it was easy to find the different points like the climax in the story. It was clear which events were important and how the animals were affected by them. I also liked how the plot was organized with the animals kicking out Jones, then improving their life, then… I don’t want to spoil to much for those of you who haven’t read it yet.
Psst… You can read it here:
Go check them out 😉
Anyways, since the plot was pretty great, I give it an 8/10
The Historical References
I don’t want to talk to much about this because, honestly, part of the fun is trying to find out what the different characters relate to. For example, the sheep in the story that continuously chant “four legs good, two legs bad” are mean to represent that average people during Stalin’s reign. Other than that, I won’t say much. But the cleverness and articulate writing that helped relate the book to historical time makes me give this section a 10/10.
Overall, I loved this book and think you should DEFINETLY read it. It’s short, concise, and a fun, entertaining read. So again, you can check it out in a kindle edition here below:
And if you missed it earlier, as a physical, paperback version here:
Overall, I give this book a 9/10
