1984 by George Orwell

1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever. 1984 is still the great modern classic of "negative utopia" a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny the novel's hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

Note: The following original review for this book is old and does not meet current review standards. A fully rewritten review is planned.

A classic I never got around to reading during school, as others have praised the concepts and themes hold up remarkably well. Some aspects such as the controlling history and the narrative can even be seen today in the form of “Fake News” or social media trends and hypes. I found the first 2/3 of the book to be a dry and uninteresting read where I was speed-reading to get through it (the tone and characters were not to my taste) and there’s some questionable takes on how women are portrayed (though again, this is written in the 1950’s which is to be expected to a certain degree) but thinks got a bit more interesting at a particular tuning point near the end of the book.

It’s portrayal of Stockholm syndrome was interesting and complex (which is even more impressive considering the term and definition of Stockholm syndrome wouldn’t be discovered for another 20 yrs) and you never know where things will go as is the norm for George Orwell novels (apart from leaving a rather pointed statement at the story’s conclusion). I would’ve score this a 2 based on overall enjoyment/experience but bumped it up by how prophetic this novel is considering its age and how significant it was to the dystopian/utopia genre in both literature and movies (it’s reminiscent of The Giver but executed in a harsher and more complex setting).