Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book as it’s in the list of “100 books you have to read before you die” from Amazon, I believe. So, I thought I should read this. I don’t regret it, to be honest.

“Farenheit 451” is based on a dystopian world where firemen didn’t stop the fires but started it by finding each and every book and burning them. Why? Because it makes people think. Then came in our hero, Montag, whose curiosity was piqued by a girl named Clarisse, and he started to question everything.

Ray Bradbury wrote this years ago, in the 1950s, when TV was introduced to households. I guess people were spending too much time with TV that books began to be forgotten and he wrote this as a “What if…”. What if people were so glued to the TV that TV became their family? What if books were banned completely because it made people think on their own? I’m not saying that TV shows don’t make people think. I guess maybe not in the past, maybe because it was mainly entertainment shows, etc. I don’t really know. But now, TV is one of the media tools to reach out to people such as delivering news or giving out information. So I don’t have any vendetta against TV since people are still reading books. It’s sad, though, that bookstores are slowly shutting down due to lack of business.

Anyway, I’m diverting away from the book. So, yes, what if books were banned?

I do like the book and if you like science fiction books, this is one of the books you should read. Ray Bradbury created a world that you could easily imagine happening. I could imagine the confusion and frustration of Montag. His emotions bleed through the entire book and I love when writers could make readers feel exactly what the main character felt.

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